AMERICAN DESIGNER: THOM BROWNE

A rare case of a luxury American brand. Designs reimagined.

Thom Browne, born in 1965 in Allentown, PA, is the founder and chief designer of Thom Browne, a burgeoning American luxury brand known for its reimagining of the traditional male suit.

Browne was one of the pioneers of the now popular trend of slim fit and form-fitting suits to accentuate the form of the wearer. By doing this, Browne is able to put more emphasis on the person wearing the clothing, making the outfit serve as a supplement. This strayed from the norm of large boxy suits that did little to emphasize figure and focused more on the pieces of clothing themselves.

Designs through time

Beyond stepping outside the traditional bounds for how a suit should fit, Browne experimented with taking designs from the past and repurposing them to put in his new frontier-pushing silhouettes. For example, the grosgrain ribbon (can be seen above red-white-black trim) is a older design from the 20th century that Browne decided to include in his newer work. Additionally, Browne's work as he stepped into womenswear in 2011, has further revolutionized the suit by making the target audience for this line women instead of men who are the traditional audience for suits.

The influence of Browne's clothing can be seen today in popular culture as well; look at the 2021 met gala. Many celebrities, women and men, wore Thom Browne. Many of the pieces were androgynous and none of them were simplistic. Some examples are Erykah Badu and Pete Davidson. Funnily enough, Thom Browne's name itself represents this idea of reimagining a traditional concept. The name "Tom Brown" sounds fairly average but in this case with its unique spelling, Thom Browne seems like a breath of fresh air and stands out from the norm.