The Coolest Trend Designer of the Second: Thom Browne?
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We’re within the thick of awards season, which signifies that manufacturers are at their most determined to get their garments on VIPs within the hopes of making viral advertising and marketing moments. With unprecedented ranges of consideration educated on celebrities and what they put on, the styling panorama is more and more aggressive—when Kendrick Lamar wore flare denims on the Tremendous Bowl, a couple of model claimed credit score in my inbox. (As you most likely know, the denims had been Celine.) In our new actuality, the place an A-lister sporting one thing can dominate days of dialog on social media, no event is off limits for a vogue credit score. Working example: Saint Laurent has been sending out common PR blasts highlighting A$AP Rocky’s outfits as he attends court docket in Los Angeles to face two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
Sitting astride this wacky system (in thigh-baring tailor-made grey shorts) is Thom Browne, the grand poobah of American vogue design—he’s the reigning chairman of the CFDA—and the surprising king of superstar dressing in 2025. On Tuesday afternoon, Browne was backstage at The Shed about an hour earlier than his Fall 2025 runway present would formally drop the curtains on New York Trend Week. Male fashions with shiny hair licked to their heads had been slipping into vibrant gingham shirts and heavy tweed coats. However the efficiency everybody was speaking about was from a pair weeks earlier than, when Doechii introduced the home down on the Grammys with a spectacular efficiency that served as an ode to Browne’s twisted imaginative and prescient of American menswear.
On an evening stacked with expertise, the Tampa rapper dominated the stage. Her outfit was key: in a shrunken Thom Browne shorts-suit, she was the boss. Her 30 backup dancers, additionally kitted out in equivalent variations of Thom Browne’s iconic wool flannel tailor-made uniform, elevated the efficiency to an indelible spectacle. In an unforgettable denouement that would solely work in Browne’s aesthetic universe, the dancers ripped off Doechii’s swimsuit to disclose her stark white Thom Browne undergarments.
Doechii took dwelling the Grammy for finest rap album (sporting a unique Thom Browne swimsuit, with grey bell-shaped pannier trousers), however this was her true celebrity flip, an artist in complete command of her craft who additionally understands the novel inventive risk of excessive vogue.
Backstage in New York, the ever-understated Browne raised his eyebrows as he recalled the Grammys efficiency. “It was wonderful,” he remarked.
Browne isn’t any stranger to excessive profile phases. Michelle Obama wore one in every of his attire to her husband’s second inauguration, and in 2018 LeBron James led his Cleveland Cavaliers squad to playoff video games sporting matching Thom Browne fits. In contrast to many large vogue homes, Browne doesn’t pay celebrities to put on his clothes—James really purchased the playoff outfits himself.
