Thom Browne s explanations for his warped spectacles are always so even-toned and reasonable that they can make an interrogator feel like he s the one who has plunged down the rabbit hole into a topsy-turvy world where logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead (as the Jefferson Airplane s Grace Slick once memorably described her own experience in Wonderland). Tonight, for instance, Browne described a scenario where Punks face off against Jocks. It was almost high school in its commonplaceness. But what did he do with the inspiration? OK, here goes: Road Warrior, Rocky Horror, Blade Runner, The Longest Yard, Despicable Me, The Incredibles. Oh, and a jacket and skirt that, had they been paired with pearls, would have dragged The Iron Lady onto the men s catwalks of Paris.
Browne has always maintained he loves to entertain, to bring a smile to the face of his audience. True, there was merriment to be extracted from the mink merkins that poked cheekily out of the Punks low-slung pants, but tonight s quarterbacks in cashmere were hardly figures of fun. With their heads mounted on huge shoulders, they looked like trophies. Or, with their grotesquely exaggerated musculature, like Doctor Frankenstein s latest creations. The doctor s output is popularly cast in a sinister light, and there was something of that in Browne s work, too. As with Walter Van Beirendonck s show yesterday, the cartoon colors and proportions came across as the candy coating on a profoundly transgressive vision. And the shadowed oeuvre of Robert Mapplethorpe made its presence felt again in references to bondage (the spiked leather mask, for instance) and a final frozen tableau of dominance and submission that recalled one of the photographer s most famous images.
As Browne saw it, his seriousness of purpose came through in his proportion play. The Punks stood for a tailoring much skinnier than anything he s ever attempted before. The Jocks were obviously steroid time bombs waiting to explode, but deflate that silhouette and there were a lot of the sort of patrician, Waspy pieces that Browne toys with, like an orca with a seal. There was also a suit that duplicated a Christmas snowflake pattern in red beading on white wool. It looked so innocent in context that you fell on it with a grateful sigh.
