MILAN, ITALY — Has quirkiness and nonconformity disappeared entirely from the fashion system? Not when you’re looking at one of America’s chief designers, Thom Browne, back in Italy nearly twenty years since its previous outing. For Spring/ Summer 2027, the label had fun with the creative’s extraordinary use of volume.
Perking up audiences no end as seasons go by, while channelling his considerable experience as a technical and playful house, the designer produces clothes that are nicely poised between the outlandish and the practical. He never leans on debutante froth, but always makes the case for a catchy, overblown runway fantasy. He opened with a longline grey seersucker twin-set, followed by a blazer decked with a maxi-printed butterfly and an off-white pleated skirt. Then came a preppy take on suiting, with a cropped blazer teamed with a plunging-neckline knit and shorts—something between innocence and smart-casual glamour.
All this is ably demonstrated by his understanding of summer’s lightness and romance: open-weave cotton suiting, grid check wool pique and jacket-weight cashmere were part of this season’s style equation. But Browne isn’t one to get swept away by a theme alone. He also wisely developed some of the signature pieces so beloved by his clients, chief among them cricket and ant appliqués glimmer alongside dragonfly wings and honeycomb embroidery, grounded by practical details and the house’s codes from self-tipping, self-armbands, and shell construction to cotton cricketing with red, white, and blue taping.
“It was really about being here for the first time after a long time, almost reintroducing what you come to Tom Brown for,” Browne told reporters in a post-show preview. “So the structured tailoring, playing with American codes and celebrating the development in fabrics.” On the use of the seersucker, Browne speaks with sheer excitement. “From Memorial Day to Labour Day, I never take it off. So it’s something that’s so personal to me,” he said.
“It’s in every collection, and every collection is done differently. In this collection, you saw it in wool, in cashmere and in cotton. But there are different iterations of it too, in regards to the puffering effect on the technical fabrics that you saw throughout the collection as well.” He then touches on the reference to dragonflies, bugs and gardening. “It came from A Bug’s Life, the film,” he says. “I was flying home from Milan once, and I just watched the film and I thought it was just a charming story to reference and play with for these times that we’re living in.” A little light-heartedness for the taking.
For Spring, Browne did tons of skirts. Was this a message? “No, as I’ve been putting men in skirts for the last twenty five years,” said Browne. “It’s something that’s very signature to my collections, as I love men seeing collections and clothing differently and not being so strict about the rules of menswear. So it was about making sure that you see things differently.”
Browne feels excited and hopeful about his relationship with the Zegna group, which has acquired 85% of its stake since 2018. “I haven’t changed anything other than having amazing resources for development and amazing resources for production,” he says. “You know, Gildo loves what I do and he appreciates that we’re very different, but when it comes down to it, the quality of what we do is the most important.”
There were certainly enough graceful pieces to let fans glide through an uncertain climate, and perhaps even catch the attention of die-hard minimalists who would never go for flamboyant separates. What’s wanting, and on that point Browne is in very good company, is a sense of escapism. Until next time, he’ll take joy wherever he can feel it.
by Chidozie Obasi