Shapeshifters: Thom Browne

"I want to show young men that a suit doesn't have to look like the ones their dad or granddad wear."

Thom Browne (b.1965) debuted with innovative, narrow men’s suits. With his deviant, graphical men’s fashion in which legs of trousers and sleeves of jackets are often too short, Browne fills a unique spot in the masculine world of men’s fashion. Sonny Groo interviewed Thom Browne for SHAPE magazine, which was produced to accompany Arnhem Mode Biennale 2009.

What inspired you to design a suit with such a remarkable silhouette and did you ever expect these suits to cause your big break?
I wanted to design something new, which led to this silhouette. I often bought vintage suits by Oxford or Brooks Brothers that I would cut up. I started by making these suits for myself, and thought that if I liked it there would be others that did too. What I did know is that it wouldn’t be for everybody. I first made five suits, wore them out and got some good responses. That is how I started my company.

1. Your designs stand out. In which way are different from other menswear designers?
   I don’t pay much attention to the work of other designers. I mainly started this project because I couldn’t find this silhouette anywhere else. I felt this was refreshing and new. I wanted to introduce a ‘new’ suit to young people and show them that a suit doesn’t necessarily have to resemble the one their fathers and grandfathers are wearing.

2. Your previous collections showed several feminine items for men. How important is femininity for you?
   I am not particularly interested in femininity, but I want to provoke people and make them think of men’s clothing. There is always a higher level of expectation, innovation and interesting adaptation of materials in women’s fashion. I want to show these innovations could also apply to men’s fashion.

3. What inspires you? A lot of different things, especially those things I see people wearing in the street. But I never make my translations too literal.

4. What can we expect from Thom Browne, a women’s collection?
   I have always made women’s clothing, based on my suits. They are often private orders from customers. Recently I started a collection for Moncler called Gamme Bleu, an addition to Gamme Rouge, the women’s wear line designed by Giambattista Valli.

Sonny Groo is a stylist and editor-in-chief of MYKROMAG.

http://www.thombrowne.com/