SHORT STUFF

THOM BROWNE is the only designer who has made the short suit acceptable,
if not cool. vivienne tang speaks to him about acting, Mad Men and the fascination with the reappearing grey suit

HIS JACKETS ARE too tight and the trousers are way too short. For a moment you might need reassurance that you’re not standing in the boys department. Ties are clipped to the shirt and tucked neatly into the narrow trousers, which reveal ankle – a lot of ankle. If anyone made the outlandish short suit fashionable, it’s got to be Thom Browne.

The stand-out, time-traveller look seemed ridiculous to many in the beginning, but guys who were tired of the conventional office outfit and the I-don’t-give-a-damn attire were drawn to the square, abbreviated and reworked ’50s miniature suits Browne introduced in 2001.

Fashion critics either love or hate him. While he’s won numerous awards, many reviewers question the practicality and the responsibility of his clothes, and, perhaps, they wonder if he’d just escaped the flood.

His theatrical shows have been based on tennis and circus shows. He’s sent out models on ice skates and stilts, in three-legged trousers, ostrich-feather suits and tailored straightjackets. In his latest Paris debut show it was a runway of astronauts. But he’s quick to defend his surrealistic ideas.

“I don’t think I design things that are impractical,” says the dapper designer. “But if you do anything that’s provocative or interesting, you have to expect for people to like or dislike it. Those things that people think are impractical are just my way of making the more classic things more interesting and making people think differently. It’s almost two collections in a way, because I have my runway collection, and then there’s the more commercial side.”

He’s very conscious of what editors have to say about his designs, yet he claims to avoid knowing too much about trends and what his competitors are doing. “I never look to fashion for inspiration, nor do I ever pay attention to what’s actually going on,” he says. “I almost consciously try not to know, so I don’t get subconsciously influenced.”

Browne is in strong demand. He’s been designing the fashion-focused Black Fleece collection for Brooks Brothers since 2006, and was named creative director for Moncler Gamme Bleu in 2008.

He’s also struck deals with Harry Winston to create a slick men’s jewellery line with cufflinks, rings and timepieces, followed by a collaboration with Baccarat to design champagne coupes (the one thing he collects himself), which he makes use of in his store when serving customers. But his current focus is geared towards a new women’s line, which was launched for autumn/winter 2010 with the help of Cross Company, to whom he sold a majority stake last year.

“Men’s started in a very small way and somewhat organically. And that’s how I’m approaching women’s, taking the more classic pieces and developing them as I do with my men’s – just making pretty dresses.”

Browne grew up in conservative Allentown, Pennsylvania, together with six siblings, who all went on to become attorneys or businessmen, none of those left-field careers. Browne, on the other hand, moved to Los Angeles after graduating in business to try his hand at acting. But fate had other plans.

“It’s kind of how life works,” he says with an underlying melancholy. “I was out in LA, and I was acting. And it wasn’t really working out as well as I’d liked it to. In the life of an actor there’s a lot of free time. So I just played with vintage clothing. It was easy for me to find vintage suits back then, because a lot of people just got rid of them when they moved to LA. And that’s really how I started getting into it.”

In 1998, he left acting and moved to New York, landing a wholesale job at Armani. Soon he went on to design for Club Monaco, where he insinuated his ’50s-inspired slim-cut trousers and oxford shirts that he later became famous for.

“There was something very simple and almost uniform about the way the guys dressed, which for me looked very effortless, because it pretty much was,” he says about the ’50s. “They didn’t have much to think about in regards to clothing.”

When I mention the hit TV series Mad Men, Browne says it doesn’t really inspire him, but admits to watching it from time to time.

 “They do a good job. They capture the time really well. And they don’t only capture the good parts of what happened back then. They capture how guys were so inappropriate in regards to how they conduct themselves at work. Especially the first couple of seasons, I thought were almost unsettling on how politically incorrect the guys acted at work. And that was what was so good about the show. Actually, I think it was better at the beginning. It seems like now it’s really professionally done. Before, I think they even used old vintage suits. And now that they have all the resources to do a very expensively produced show because of its success, it just looks more produced.”

This makes him reflect what his upbringing produced for him. Despite the sometimes over-the-top showmanship he brings to fashion shows, it’s his clothes that he wants to stand out, not him personally. “I think it does influence me a lot,” he says about Pennsylvania, “because it’s a background that’s so far removed from the industry, which makes me very comfortable not having to feel like I have to be so immersed in the fashion world all the time.