The trend forecasters are predicting a prep revival. The all-American look, born of mid-century country clubs and popularized by 1980s movies, seems to be in the air again. A 17-year-old I know sets out each weekend to shop for vintage polo shirts, and Luca Guadagnino is filming a new version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel, American Psycho. That about synthesizes it.
If prep does make a comeback on the runways in the coming weeks, it wouldn’t surprise Thom Browne. “I’m always in that world because I love the timelessness of it and the ease,” he says. “I like the idea of real clothes being worn in real ways, and not clothing that’s too precious. And talk about sustainability—you can wear these things forever.” Just don’t call it a passing fad.
The Thom Browne crests that appear on jackets and coats in his new collections for women and men paint a picture of the prep lifestyle. In their four quadrants are embroidered tennis racquets, a swimmer, an anchor, and 1965, the year Browne was born. Parts of the collections could find their way to country clubs and swimming pool parties, things like an exceptional handknit argyle cardigan, a neat rain jacket in a green technical cordura fabric, any of the bermuda shorts. The jeans, Browne was careful to point out, are made with selvedge denim in the best denim factory in Japan—the only people more obsessive about American style than Browne may be the Japanese; they even have a name for it, Amekaji.
But even as he builds out the TB repertoire, Browne is as devoted to and meticulous about tailoring as ever, in particular the gray suit, but also his custom plaid tweeds and silk mogadors. Staying on theme, a gray skirt suit was topped by a maillot-shaped corset, and taking it to only-for-superfans extremes, other suits were intarsia’d or embroidered with trompe l’oeil effect bikinis.
In other news, it’s the 10th anniversary of the Hector bag, so you’ll see many iterations of the dog-shaped bag here. The palladian window prints and embroideries are a nod to Browne’s new project, the renovation of an 18th century house in upstate New York that is now underway.