I've seen Thom Browne a lot in the area for the past few years - handsome, short-ish man (maybe 5'8" max), who looks even shorter because the suits he makes and favors are super-slim but cropped, with high-waisted, almost-highwater length pants and slightly oversized shoes. His showroom is directly underneath Cloak's in the meat-packing district. While like most of you I can respect the quality and the intent that goes into this clothing, it's not for me. To wear this look is all about conforming to Thom Browne's aesthetic of when he was young, looking at Sears and Brooks Brothers catalogs and ordering from them without ever fitting them. There's perhaps a very Eisenhower/JFK feeling to the clothing that never appealed to me, although Thom himself is appealing in that he's handsome and has a definite idea about how he dresses. But he definitely has his look, and if you don't like that look, it may not work for you at all - Thom is very fit, but I feel he looks out-of-shape in the suits. It's definitely a modern way of looking retro, just like in the movies. But I changed my mind slightly about his suits when I saw someone else wearing them.
He has a young man who works for him who wears the same suits slightly differently (you can customize it so that they don't make you look just like Thom, but maybe not too much unlike him) so much so that I couldn't stop looking at him when I ran into him at an art supply store recently. A very slim cut, and obviously well-fitted, but more traditional looking so it stood out from the typical designer look. Ultimately, that's what makes the suit stand out - it looks like a fashionista's version of a workman's suit, which is a form of drag in itself.
Anyhow, Thom's been heralded as part of the new suitmaker's wave of menswear designers of the past few years. He's been thrust into the limelight in the company of Spencer Hart, Duncan Quinn and Andrew Harmon. Since I don't even wear the suits that I own, I can't really tell you what it's like to wear them. However, Thom recently had a spread in some magazine I saw at a store recently (that I didn't buy) and I thought the two dozen or so outfits he wore from his collection made him look awful. I didn't buy the mag and promptly forgot about it. But there's a revealing interview in the premiere issue of Fantastic Man magazine, a new style journal for men brought to you by the publishers of Butt, the "fantastic magazine for homosexuals," quite possibly the only p*rno magazine in the world to have advertising from Gucci, Dior Homme and Helmut Lang (So faust, that means it's NOT for you, if you dislike magazines ever being "disgustingly homoerotic;" yes, I'm
never forgiving you for that nasty comment of yours). It's a magazine I personally like for it's very cheeky wink-wink, nudge-nudge tpe of proto-seriousness, and its style obviously appeals to the gay men who run in the fashion circles (it's where I got to read first about Thomas Engel Hart). I haven't read through Fantastic Man Magazine completely, but it's designed very similarly to Butt. Here's a preview.
http://www.fantasticmanmagazine.com/
Hope this helps yout Thome Browne query.
