Hello, Tailor

Thom Browne loves to play with gender in his designs, and viewed through the lens of his recent menswear shows, this collection does show some aspects of that. Where the silhouette of his menswear designs was rounded and soft (even if it was the roundness of overly-padded muscles), many of the coats and dresses in this show were angular in the extreme, going well beyond the squared-off shoulderpads of the 1930s and ’80s. — Fall 2013: Thom Browne Womenswear.

Amazingly, this is Thom Browne’s Ready-To-Wear collection. If you’ve heard of Thom Browne, chances are it’s either because of his rather eccentric menswear or because Michelle Obama wore one of his designs to this year’s Inauguration — you know, the dress that made her look kind of like a Vulcan. This collection drew far more from his menswear than from his more sedate womenswear designs, however. Not because it was remotely masculine in appearance, but more because of the exaggerated proportions and Browne’s unique ability to make grey look like the loudest colour on the spectrum. — Fall 2013: Thom Browne Womenswear.