Thom Browne: A Study of the All-Encompassing One-Man Brand

Reading GQ's 'Men of the Year' profile on Thom Browne, American designer of his eponymous line as well as Brooks' Brothers' niche 'Black Fleece' upscale line, revealed insights about a man whose clothes I have admired, but now look at with greater reverence in the way he has defined himself as a walking one-man brand. I think the future of branding lies in the idea of a mastermind selling a trademark through embodying the brand/product/concept in every aspect of their life. Life as performance art? Perhaps, but what grander stage is there than the street...

A comparison of how the 'one-man' brand works in different ways could be illustrated through a comparative look at Thom Browne and Rick Owens, two designers who create clothes that are somewhat autobiographical, if not of their experiences, at least their worldview. Both are excellent at getting themselves out there in their respective way. Rick Owens' clever use of life-scale models of himself placed in his stores, t-shirts where he is featured in provocative gestures like blowing his brains out, etc. illustrate how a man can sell an entire brand based on selling the world through his eyes packaged in an attractive and interesting manner. The difference between Rick and Thom, however, strikes me as being quite subtle (or maybe it's not?). Rick's gestures of self-promotion are all through the vehicle of aesthetics related to his brand and how he defines its ethos. Thom's vision seems to be pervasive through every aspect of his existence, in the way he seems to speak in interviews, his tastes in decor, or gestures like the precision of daily routine in meals/dressing/rituals Thom goes through to demonstrate the world he is trying to build. I think Thom Browne lives "Thom Browne" more than Rick Owens lives "Rick Owens" in this sense of totality.

Thom Browne's clearly talented; I think he does the best grey OTR suit in the world today (Sorry Tom Ford, comes close but doesn't quite have the character of Thom's contradictorily subversive take on conformity). I think the interesting thing he said in the interview was how he presented clothes based on an imaginary version of the 60s/Brooks Brothers/JFK era that was what he wanted to view that time as, but most likely wasn't the same as it happened...actually some kind of fragmented, inaccurate recollection of the past. In Thom's ideal world, it's always the early 1960s, Manhattan, New York City, everywhere, with everyone wearing the same Grey Suit and operating within the same stark, minimal interior spaces, whether they are an IBM technician or a real life Madison Avenue Don Draper. It's this inconsistency in 'selective perspective' of viewing or romanticizing an ideal based on the past that suddenly makes Thom's entire body of work seem so much more human to me. On the ground-level of product, Thom's communication of his vision is unlike the overt decadence and debauchery pervasive throughout Tom Ford's brand, to compare him to a contemporary classical sartorialist. Ford's 'image' is presented mostly through marketing, advertising and a superficial glance of Ford himself as a debonair and glitzy international man, rather than the clothes, most of which look quite plain and unassuming on the rack, even if well made. Thom's seasonal shows, always based on the same drab early-60s salaryman grey suit and his infinite takes on mutilating, reinventing and essentially redefining it makes him a visionary of a designer, in the context of the runway. On the rack, in stores, the clothes might be suits, sweaters, shirts, oxfords that could be the templates of any menswear brand, but something about Thom's jumps out at me, for a reason I can't really put my finger on. It feels stiff and rigid on a glance, but I can definitely see through Thom's own photos how the right person can make the clothes come totally alive and rock and roll (I'm sure Thom himself wouldn't relate to that last phrase, but it felt apt in my case). Despite the structure and recurring theme of 'restraint' which Thom himself has said underlines his entire body of work, the brand has been shaped in such a way that few designers offer clothes with such a sly suggestiveness that is so open to imagination and interpretation.