Thom Browne Pre-Fall 2023 Collection

How do you follow up an Opera Garnier extravaganza that opened with Gwendoline Christie in a braided coat and closed with MJ Rodriguez in a button-down and tie, boy briefs peeking over the waistband of her trousers, strutting not just to Aretha Franklin’s “Pink Cadillac,” but in a pink cadillac? If you’re Thom Browne you do an about-face, and swap Cinderella, which was one of his reference points for spring, with Moby Dick.

At first glance, this pre-fall collection has a much more sober spirit than spring, with its shades of navy and gray, and its more typically Browneian silhouettes. Of course, the Herman Melville classic is a tale of obsession and revenge, but look closer at these clothes—Browne’s clothes typically reward close inspection—and you’ll find humor in them too. See the intarsia’d double-breasted coat in which a lifeboat full of sailors is dwarfed by the giant sperm whale, or the tailored skirt suit in a wallpaper print depicting the final battle at sea between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. On the accessories front, Hector the bag has made some new friends in the form of not just the victorious whale, but also the Pequod, the doomed ship.

About this season’s silhouettes. Though there’s a’60s-short shift or two, Browne’s instinct was to cut his tailoring lean and long, often layering pants underneath skirt shapes to extend the line. Accessorizing the tweed separates with tweed tights created a similar elongating effect. The remarkable thing about Browne is that his aesthetic is so well-sketched out, so unique, that both the Cinderella and Moby Dick collections could only be designed by him.