The showing of Thom Brownes fall and winter 2012 womens collection started with a eulogy delivered before a row of 10 open, coffin-like boxes, each occupied by a gray-suited model whose face and and hands were covered in gauzy white fabric.
With that, haunting music began to float through the Edna Barnes Salomon Room of the New York Public Library, the models arose from their sartorial slumber and Brownes ethereal, quixotic and exquisitely detailed handiwork began to appear.
Although the color palette didnt vary much from Brownes signature range of white, black and gray, the collection made up for it with texture.Each piece used a multitude of different fabrics — cable knits, tweeds, tulle, flannel and fur — folded, buttoned, draped and layered into swales, sculpted into geometric humps and bumps and festooned with mirrored squares or flattened fabric foxes.
Some pieces used the fabric to create the same kind of graceful architectural curves and arcs Frank Gehry renders in undulating metal, while others were shaped from below and beneath, using bustles, boning and other hidden infrastructure to create beautifully misshapen silhouettes in a “Downton Abbey” meets “Beetlejuice” kind of way.
