Breakfast At Ritz, Couture Fittings with Debra Shaw, and A Champagne Toast—A Day in the Life of Thom Browne

[soft ethereal music]

Hey Vogue, it s Thom Browne.

We re here at the Ritz, my home here in Paris.

It s Thursday morning, four days before my couture show.

You re gonna spend the day with me today

and see what happens the days before the show.

I get my day started here.

I have coffee and something not very healthy for breakfast.

Then I go to the showroom and it s usually a full day.

And then depending on the day,

whether it s fittings, castings,

you know, just getting everything ready for the show.

Right now, I m gonna have some breakfast

and let s see how the day goes.

[soft piano music]

Thank you.

[soft piano music continues]

Getting ready for this couture show,

I m approaching it just like my other shows.

I ve been showing here for 12 years in Paris

and I m a creature of habit,

so the Ritz is a comfortable place for me to stay.

The most important thing for this,

especially this first couture collection,

was to showcase what I do

and what I want people to know me for.

So it s based around my tailoring.

It starts with that gray suit

that is elevated to a couture level.

And then of course with my shows there s a story

in regards to how the protagonist in the gray suit

is feeling her life and drowning in her sorrows,

and then is surrounded by more fantastic versions

of that tailored gray suit.

[soft music]

Paris never gets old.

I love just, you know, observing.

I get so inspired by people on the street

and there s so much to,

you know, be inspired by here in Paris.

You never know where it s gonna come from most of the time,

but it always does.

This show started with the song Fade to Grey by Visage.

Andrew and I were listening to music

and this Visage song came up.

There was something about the collection

that I wanted to be a little bit somber

and not as upbeat

cause I do feel things are not always so happy.

And so it started from there.

But every collection is different.

[soft piano music]

We are here in the showroom,

everything s coming together.

There s still a lot of hand work to be done,

but we are ready to start fittings.

It s always the most exciting time

to see the clothing actually,

you know, on the bodies.

And the way I work,

it s conversations with my design director, Thi,

seeing how we can interpret the story

into the individual looks of the collection.

[soft classical music]

So this is ready to fit.

So we can fit this today. This is ready.

This we can fit today. Yeah.

[soft classical music continues]

I love what we do

and I love what we represent in regards to,

you know, a very unique American sensibility

that has the luxury of showing here in Paris.

Behind me are the boards of the collection.

Here on this board you see the characters

that really contextualize the collection in the story.

A girl entering a train station

and being on a train platform

thinking about her life

and almost drowning in her sorrows.

And that s the way that the story

in regards to the embroidery

and the underwater theme

and the more, almost East Coast preppy iconography,

comes into play.

I do feel like how I approach my collections

is through a true American sensibility,

and I do like people to see that.

But taking that American sensibility

and heightening it to the level

of being worthy of showing here in Paris.

And the seersucker is something

that I feel like is very American,

but it s never done at this level.

And I think that s what makes it appropriate

for the collection.

One of the fabrics that I use really often,

of course, it s gray, it s in a wool crepe,

but the idea of gold bullion

being used in a radial stitch all over the coat

really elevates it to this collection.

And then underneath is a coat dress

taking the underwater theme.

And this is a mermaid. And then on the back of it,

you see almost the idea of,

we re calling it mermaid sushis,

because it s like a a slice of the mermaid,

seeing the actual skeletal features of the mermaid.

Each piece is so specific,

so it does take a lot of thought

in regards to who is actually going to be in each look.

And then also too,

this being a couture collection with both men and women,

I do have some more provocative looks for men.

It s provocative because it is such

a short mini dress on a guy.

And we live in a time that I think

it s really interesting

that men and women are just more interested

in just doing so much more.

[soft synth music]

We re calling them bells because there s an interpretation

of the bell in the train station.

The bells represent a conceptual shape.

The one thing with collections,

I do like them to almost feel superhuman

and to be unrealistic in a way.

Because I love the idea of my shows being fantasy

and aspirational and elevating clothing to,

in a way an art form.

We re going into the atelier

and this is where everything is happening, the magic.

I have an amazing team

and you get to see how it all comes together.

So we are replacing the whole back and re-engineering--

Yeah. All the grosgrain.

And these are all silk grosgrain.

Matching. It s gonna look--

Matching is important.

All the stripes and patterns, yeah.

It s Thursday, the show s on Monday,

so do the math.

What is that?

Four days. Four days? Five days?

Yeah. Yeah.

And there s still a lot to do,

but it s all coming together.

But this is the fun part.

This is really were it gets exciting.

[soft classical music]

There s so much hand work that needs to be done.

So, you kind of see it in total

and you don t realize like each one of the bells,

the work that goes into finishing each bell

in just the pearl embroidery.

And here the seersucker jacket,

you know, elevating seersucker to couture

in all the hand beading on the seersucker stripes.

You see, of course Hector

interpreted in different ways

for the collection.

This is the biggest Hector we ve done.

Yes. Hector is growing,

Hector s getting older and growing.

[soft classical music]

So this is the first fitting.

Paolo is here and he will be in the crab look.

The most important thing for when I go into the fittings

is to get a sense on how the model feels

in what they re wearing.

It is a mini skirt,

so I just wanna make sure he has the confidence

to be able to wear it.

It s great. The length is really good.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

That is amazing.

Anna, the shoes are fine with the latex,

they ll be fine.

The shoes. Yeah.

We need a little trial.

Yeah. It s so nice to see them come to life

and not disappointed.

[Thi] Oh my God. [Thom laughing]

Yeah.

So it s, it s a good one.

Ready to go.

Now you re getting to see my favorite person

in the whole world. [kissing sounds]

Good morning. Looks so good.

Good afternoon.

So good.

How s the latex bodysuit?

I love it.

Yeah, because it s, it s clinging to my skin.

It s the skin.

Yeah.

That is so beautiful. Wow.

[Thi] That s a couture coat.

[Thom] Yeah.

You haven t seen the back yet.

[Thom laughing]

You know, that s the one thing

we do conceive of everything

from head to toe at the beginning.

And then there are moments that,

you know, sometimes we have to adjust

in the bag for this look

because you don t want to just,

you know, take away from the look.

And the bag is a little big,

so we re just trying to think.

[soft piano music]

Sometimes I like to be a little corny

and at the end of the show

there will be a woman who is supposed to be the train

that s leaving the station

and she will have this amazing headpiece.

So that s our train.

Her part in the show is very important

in regards to the conceptualized version

of the train leaving the station

and our protagonist not being on the train.

It s a very simple head piece.

It goes, Thi can try it on.

[Woman] Thi, you wanna try it on for us?

Here let me put up.

I ll try to. [Thom laughing]

[Woman] Amazing.

The mohawk.

The one thing I like to, I like to play

and I like to have fun and I,

you know, I like to, you know, make people laugh.

It s the end of the first day of fittings.

Got through a lot, but there s still so much to do,

but everything is working out really well.

We have a little bit to wrap up,

but I m looking forward to show you my first couture show.

I m gonna go back to the hotel,

gonna have some champagne with Andrew

and dinner in the room and bed

and then up again, more of the same tomorrow.

[soft piano music]

Cheers, Vogue.

See you Monday.

[soft synth music]