Thom Browne is fantastic. He has built a credible business from of small ground floor level store in New York’s Meatpacking District on Little West 12^th Street based on a grey suit. In the beginning he was his own best model wearing his high water pants all over town preferably for lunch at Pastis which was next to his studio. Now the Thom Browne brand is sold all over the world known for its high end suiting, top quality basics like dress shirts and quirky accessories like handbags in the shape of small dogs. He knows fashion history like nobody else which doesn’t come as a surprise given he is the partner of the MET’s Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton in New York City. He has even dressed the football club FC Barcelona and they came to him. And yes, recently he was bought up by the Zegna group so all is well in his world. He could even afford to end his Moncler gig to focus solely on Thom Browne. Sometimes he provides magical fashion moments and has somewhat become the Western Rei Kawakubo. Outrageous shapes, whimsical prints and colors anchored in classic shapes. His look is distinct and often tongue in cheek. But his shows often test the audience’s patience and nerves. Yesterday he was nearly an hour late to start the show. We suspect this was due to his final look model Bella Hadid who has been holding up a lot of shows as she seems to be closing everything. Why she was in Thom Browne, only he knows.

Then the show itself lasted nearly half an hour and as the designer used the entire gigantic space of the Palais Garnier with its different corridors and corners, the guests had the most discombobulated experience. One never knew what was going on, the soundtrack jumping from classical music to American teenage party songs and models doing their usual over the top swagger. The clothes were great, audacious in candy colors (Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy” booming) and with the usual tailoring antics of cascading layers in shiny silks in an opera coat heavy line-up. In true Browne fashion, the opera coats were taken off and the undergarments like petticoats revealed. Browne called it “an American prom mixed with Cinderella mixed with the Paris Opera.” Given the scale and importance of this show, we cannot understand why Browne risks undermining it. At the same time he loves little frisson as even the voice over announced “Thom loves his little stories—and this is going to be a very long story.” Well, a bit too long.