Thom Browne’s SS27 show began with the sound of buzzing.
Inside The Shed at Hudson Yards, Browne had built a giant garden, with dandelions and leaves blown up to such cartoonish proportions that suddenly, I was the one who felt bug-sized. “I wonder if someone will come out of there,” my fashion director seatmate mused, pointing to a human-sized chrysalis in the center of the stage.
He was right. But first, she had to get in. A group of lithe models—including Kai Schreiber, whose parents Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber beamed from the front row—appeared in caterpillar-print leotards and frothy tulle skirts. They moved through the garden in formation, deposited Schreiber inside the chrysalis, and scurried off. “I’ll weave for you some marvelous web, glow in the dark threads, all neon like,” Björk's voice crooned over the speakers, replacing the sound of buzzing bees. Then the show began.
Tailoring has been Browne’s starting point since he opened his business with five suits in a tiny West Village shop in 2001. More than 25 years later, it’s kind of incredible how much mileage he continues to get out of the uniform, tweaking and sharpening it along the way until it became unmistakably his. This season, his suits had loosened up—in spirit, at least. They felt lighter and cheerier, rendered in airy madras checks, soft pastels, and textured tweeds.
And up close, there were bugs everywhere. Tiny creepy-crawlies climbed jacket lapels; bees, flies, moths, and ants colonized coats and skirts; grasshoppers became sleek clutches (I want!); towering platform boots sprouted butterfly wings. Veils of netting floated around straw hats, making the models look like exceptionally chic beekeepers as they moseyed through the garden to the score from Disney’s A Bug’s Life. Midway through, even Browne’s familiar suiting seemed to develop exoskeletons of its own: dresses bulged outward into the shapes and patterns of ladybugs, weevils, and beetles.
Browne could have stopped at the joke—bugs, but make them fashion!—but the clothes kept surprising us. Cocoons appeared; jackets depicted butterfly wings at different stages of unfurling. At one point, Metallica’s “Moth Into Flame” came blasting through the speakers, and out stalked a black widow in a cinched black corset and veil, looking like a scorned lover about to wreak havoc at her ex’s funeral.
And finally, the caterpillar girl I watched disappear into the chrysalis emerged, now transformed into a butterfly, joining the fluttering group in low-slung gossamer skirts gathered around Browne’s final bride, whose wings rose dramatically around her face.
Browne has been doing his own version of metamorphosis for most of his career, taking the same familiar suit and somehow making it new again each season. And for all the fantasy, underneath all the insects and enormous dandelions were lots of clothes I could actually imagine wearing (at least, in a dream life): pastel suits, silk ties, spring checks, ballerina-like butterfly dresses.
Browne had the final slot on the NYFW calendar, and I can’t think of a nicer way to have ended the week. For half an hour, we got to sit inside an enormous garden, listening to A Bug's Life, watching caterpillars turn into butterflies. It was weird and wonderful, and I left feeling delighted by it all.
Then I stepped out of The Shed—and straight into the blinding flashes of street style photographers trying to capture Demi Moore’s brand-new bob (which, to be fair, looked c*nty as hell).
Take me back to your garden, Thom!