Browne, Thom

Thom Browne, (born 1965, Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S.), American fashion designer known for his reconceptualization of the classic men’s suit. He became widely recognized for his womenswear after U.S. first lady Michelle Obama wore one of his designs to the 2013 presidential inauguration.

Browne studied business at the University of Notre Dame, where he was a competitive swimmer. Following graduation in 1988, he moved to Hollywood to become an actor and found some success working in commercials. Though not formally trained as a designer, he left for New York City in 1997 to pursue a career in the fashion industry, first working with a tailor, then as a salesman for Giorgio Armani, and later as a designer for Club Monaco. Browne launched a line of made-to-measure menswear in 2001, and his signature soon became impeccably tailored suits in traditional navy wools and gray flannels skewed with shrunken proportions. His designs initially shocked the fashion world but soon came to lead the trend of slim-fitting menswear. Browne drew much of his inspiration from classic mid-20th-century American style and incorporated preppy details such as grosgrain trim and short trousers shown with exposed ankles.

In 2004 Browne launched his first line of ready-to-wear menswear, and in 2005 he was a runner-up for the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)/Vogue Fashion Fund, one of the top prizes for emerging American designers. The following year the CFDA named him Menswear Designer of the Year. Browne’s first women’s pieces were designed as part of his work for Brooks Brothers’ upscale Black Fleece label in 2007, and he produced his own capsule collection (a limited range of designs with a particular focus) of womenswear that same year. During that period Browne continued to focus mostly on menswear, and he won the GQ Designer of the Year award in 2008.

Browne introduced his first full line of women’s ready-to-wear for spring 2011. Much like his menswear, the collection was a reinterpretation of classic styles with the addition of edgy, slightly subversive details: dresses, jackets, and trousers were shown in a classic American palette of red, white and navy—occasionally achieved by way of sequined ginghams and quirky mermaid prints. In 2012 he was recognized among influential American designers from across all industries with the National Design Award from Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, presented to him by Michelle Obama. Browne remained largely unknown to most Americans until the first lady attended her husband’s inauguration in 2013 wearing a custom-made Thom Browne coat-and-dress combination in a menswear-inspired subtly checked navy silk foulard. Browne was again named the Menswear Designer of the Year by the CFDA in 2013 and 2016.

In 2016 Sandbridge Capital, a private equity investment firm, acquired a majority stake in Browne’s company. Two years later, however, the Italian fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna reached an agreement in which it acquired 85 percent of the business, with Browne as the only other shareholder. He also continued as chief creative officer.