Thom Browne‘s autum-winter 2024 show was a compelling and theatrical NYFW send off. An ominous broken window in the centre of the runway coupled with barren trees, including a towering nine metre one swaddled in a puffer coat, set an eerie tone. As Anna Cleveland entered, clad in a tweed and a black headpiece, to the crowd’s surprise the largest tree began to move – it was a model on stilts. Suddenly, at the hem, children began to pop out, four in total. The soundtrack playing while this was all happening? Naturally Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, as narrated by Carrie Coon. The magnificent Kristen McMenamy was next to hit the runway, clad in a coat covered in ravens and gravity-defying braids. Twisted and dark, the subsequent parade of looks highlight what Browne does best, take preppy, classic standards like tweeds and tailoring and transform them into works of art with a perverse, sinister allure. A trenchcoat gets the bondage treatment, courtesy of rows of straps that line the back while a resin dipped jacket resembles a black ooze infecting a rainbow-hued world. Waists were cinched and blazers were exaggerated, creating both slim and bulbous silhouettes in equal fashion. Alex Consani’s finale as the mantis meant gold gilded braids turned into antennae as well as a face full of foil, complete with matching lashes. At its heart The Raven is a tale of distraught love and the madness that entails from it. Browne managed to convey all these feeling in this stunning fashion-show-slash-performance.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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