A Collection is a product
The craft that sells the core product.
Spring summer Collection 2020 for Thom Bronwe
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CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION
VISUAL CRAFT
Summary
PREMISE
Before product design, I designed runway collections at Thom Browne. It was product work in a different medium.
THE PROBLEM
Runway pieces don't pay the bills; the core tailoring does. A collection's job is to make the brand desirable enough that the everyday product sells. This one had to build that halo.
MY ROLE
In-house designer at Thom Browne. Took the collection from concept and source research through specs, fittings, and final build with pattern makers, cutters, and sewers.
CONTEXT
A Thom Browne runway collection. The idea: the excess of the 18th-century French court, rebuilt in seersucker, the house's humblest fabric.
OUTCOME
Recognized in major fashion press and few patterns (design components) repeated for celebrity dressing.
PROJECT LENGTH
3 months.
Setup
THE PROBLEM
Desire is the deliverable.
The runway collection is not where the money is. Core tailoring is. The collection exists to create the desire that sells it.
So the brief never changes: add a new idea bold enough to get noticed, without breaking the identity people already know.
Images here show the inspiration for the Spring/Summer 2020 collection: Lionel Messi in a core tailoring suit and 18th-century Marie Antoinette court fashion. A clever mix of these two themes for a runway show in Paris.
THE USERS
One buys, one amplifies.
The customer who buys the product. The collection has to make the brand worth wanting.
The audience that builds the halo. Press, stylists, and whoever puts a piece on someone famous. They see the boldest version first and decide if it travels.
Both are served by a real body. A garment is used by someone who moves and sits, so fit is usability and the fitting is the test.
THE TEAM
The pattern makers and sewers are the engineers.
A collection ships like a product, with the same kind of team.
Designer. Pattern makers, who turn a drawing into a buildable pattern. Cutters and sewers, who build the garment. They are the engineers. Production managers run the calendar like a PM.
My job was to make the design easy to build: clear specs, references, samples they could measure against. A vague spec became a flawed garment; a precise one built clean. Same skill as a good engineering handoff, learned on a deadline in physical form.
Features
Pannier
The wide-hipped court silhouette, the anchor of the collection. Built as a full skirt, and as a structural version with the inner cage exposed and wrapped in seersucker. Used on trousers too.
Classical panniers from the Metropolitan Museum’s archive, photographed on the research trip.
Corset
A period undergarment, reinterpreted in seersucker. The most reused piece in the collection.
Embroidery
Carried the French richness without losing the house's restraint.
Trompe l'oeil
One garment built to look like several layered pieces. Many test rounds to get it stable before the atelier could build it at quality. The hard problems were solved before final build, the same as testing a flow before engineering commits.
Drape
The robe à la polonaise, the 18th-century skirt gathered into high swags, rebuilt in seersucker. Adjustable pulls let the same garment shift between silhouettes. One cut, multiple states.
Outcome
The Spring/Summer 2020 women's collection debuted at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and reviewed well. A few of the pieces I designed became part of the house's repertoire.
Vogue
Praised at its Paris debut for its craft and concept
Design system
The corset and pannier became components the house reused for years
Grammys
2025
Doechii wore Thom Browne court jacket and pannier to 2025 Grammys, where she won Best Rap Album
Inauguration
2021
Katy Perry wore Thom Browne corset on 2021 inauguration broadcast
