Inside the Gothic and Spellbinding Beauty Looks From Thom Browne’s Latest Collection

For his Fall/Winter 2024 collection, Thom Browne transformed the Shed into a wintery enclave. A bare tree, wearing an oversized Thom Browne puffer coat, stood in the center of the space; one by one, models emerged onto the scene via a window with a broken pane placed behind the tree. Browne’s inspiration for the collection was Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem “The Raven,” and as the models walked down the runway, actress Carrie Coon gave a dramatic reading of the piece. In the poem, a bereaved student, mourning the loss of his love Lenore, is visited by a raven who answers all his questions with the same word: nevermore.

The poem was a site of inspiration for both the clothes and the beauty looks. “We have two hero characters in the show. There’s the ravens and the insects,” explains lead makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench. All the models wore long black nails shaped into talons, and both groups donned a strong, vibrant red lip and a monochromatic, sculpted eye. To help lift the face, Ffrench and her team brushed and slicked up brows with Elmer’s Glue Sticks. Then, the makeup artists pressed on liquid concealer to make the brows disappear, drawing all attention towards the eyes. To further the story and amplify the center of the face, Lashify lash extensions were applied below the model’s natural lashes to create a long, swooping winged lash. For the crow characters, the nose was buffed and sculpted to evoke the impression of a bird.

On top of the ravens’ heads were wigs made to look as if the hair was stuck in motion. James Pecis, the lead hairstylist for the show, and his team cut the hair short, added extensions to create the lengthier bits, then set the wigs with a to-be-released texturizing dust from Blu and Green, Pecis’s newly launched hair care brand. Once the wigs were styled, black acrylic paint was layered on top. Pecis and his team pre-made wiry, braided headpieces for the insects that were then bent into various shapes. The result was an immersive and gothic fantasy rendered into reality.