Injecting a vital dose of crazy into an increasingly commercially-driven New York Fashion Week, Thom Browne offered his take on mentally-disturbed chic for Spring/Summer 2014. To the tune of a relentlessly mixed-and-mashed Bjork’s ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’, models in severe Victorian-inspired garb wandered aimlessly through connecting rooms that made up the catwalk, gazing into space with make-up wildly smudged across their faces and powdered up-dos complete with pearl-beaded hair nets. As nurses handed out little white candy-pills to the audience, the engrossingly surreal performance continued, with models donning primarily cream and white confections adorned with light-as-air frills, pearls and buttons not unlike wedding cake decoration.
As always, Browne experimented brilliantly with proportion – offsetting severe and structured tailoring with an amplification of feminine curves, creating almost cartoon-like hourglass silhouettes. Much attention was paid to detail, with ensembles that took every part of the body into consideration; from frilly socks atop Victorian booties, bizarre latex gloves featuring white fingernails and delicate lace about necks to clusters of toy cats hanging on strings of pearls, each look was as multilayered and creative as the elaborate sets of Sleep No More. Inspiringly berserk and strangely beautiful, Thom Browne had me at cat clusters on pearls.