Reviews of Tailor Dreams for Men

exist Thom Browne: The man who customizes dreamsGerman documentarian Reiner Holzemer, whose recent work includes films about the fashion houses of Dries Van Noten and Martin Margiela, tells the story of a designer with an instantly recognizable aesthetic but an aversion to introspection. This makes Brown, as one friend and colleague described it, somewhat of a distant topic, an enigma. He prefers to keep his creative sparks to himself and let his clothes speak for themselves.

But wow, do these clothes speak for themselves. Freely mixing the dreamy and the whimsical in the studio and especially in the numerous shots of the fashion show – all coordinated down to the tiniest detail – the beautiful doc focused on combining impeccable structure with A series where quirkiness and cheeky humor come together to mesmerizing effect.

Holzemer seems aware of the potential imbalance between personal and professional access, which makes it a wise strategy to begin dazzling our eyes with images of shocking dramatic impact. To the sound of rumbling strings, the stage safety curtain slowly rose, revealing the ornate gilded auditorium of Paris’s Palais Garnier, with its nearly 2,000 seats, each wearing cardboard cutouts and iconic Thom Browne gray suits. , wearing sunglasses. The effect is surreal.

Two male “porters” wear sophisticated suit and pleated skirt combos that are a cornerstone of Browne’s gender-fluid style – worn by stars including Oscar Isaac, Lee Pace and David Harbour. Step onto the stage and drop off a bunch of matching luggage.

Then a model wearing bedazzled platform shoes and a layered version of the same outfit walked in, sitting on her suitcase as if waiting for a train. The unfolding fashion show, with fashion journalists, buyers and celebrity clients seated around the perimeter of the stage, represented what she observed. These include fellow passengers, railway workers, gargoyles and a chic pigeon wearing a sculptural headdress (designed by British milliner Stephen Jones, a regular Brownie customer).

The July 2023 show is Browne’s debut at Haute Couture Week, making him one of the few American designers to show alongside legendary brands such as Dior, Chanel, Schiaparelli and Valentino. But if Brown is nervous, it doesn’t show as he makes last-minute adjustments to the model backstage and watches the monitor with satisfaction. He’s nothing like the self-dramatizing designers seen in so many fashion docs, running around in a frenzy, shouting instructions and then collapsing to the floor in exhaustion after a collection is released to the world.

Having such gentle, always seemingly calm and kind subjects is both a hallmark and a drawback of Holzemer’s films. It’s not that every fashion celebrity has to deal with an ongoing crisis to be interesting, but the film depicts so little conflict, drama, and personal detail that can’t be gleaned from past profiles or even Wikipedia pages , which sometimes feels like a promotional film—albeit a lavish one. It’s gorgeous, but has no edge.

The briefest of which mentions that the company almost had to shut down operations when the financial crisis hit in early 2009, but the company weathered the storm and bounced back. Commenting on Adidas’s unsuccessful attempt to sue Browne for infringement of its three-stripes trademark, Andrew Bolton, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and a partner of the designer, said his integrity was so publicly exposed during the 2023 trial The doubts were difficult for Brown. But we heard nothing of the sort from him himself.

The closest the film comes to actual drama is when MJ Rodriguez walks down the runway at a 2023 fashion show, and a staff member watching on a monitor exclaims, “She’s not wearing a jacket!” But The blunder was quickly laughed off after the show, with people acknowledging that even though Rodriguez was wearing an incomplete costume, she pulled it off.

The doctor is very comfortable. Almost every talking head is considered “and friend” after their profession. Interviewees praised Brown for his tailoring skills or boundless imagination, technical virtuosity or bold concepts, as well as his uniqueness, even though he always started with the uniform baseline of a gray suit.

It’s all a little too intimate. Pace was coyly labeled an “actor” without mentioning his marriage to Matthew Foley, Brown’s vice president of marketing and communications. Anna Wintour works closely with Bolton every year at the Met Gala, and Browne’s custom designs always create a buzz. Even the celebrity clients look like spokespersons (Cardi B is riot though). This makes the documentary seem tightly controlled, which is always a risk with an authorized nonfiction film about living subjects.

What’s missing is an outside perspective and a critical voice. Bolton talks about the early exposure of Browne’s Pee-Wee Herman-style shrunken suits in London, where the arrogant Savile Row tailors were shocked by the radical revision of proportions. But the talk was limited to admiration and flattery.

This is somewhat understandable given that the film’s subject is a true American success story. But when anyone interested in luxury fashion doesn’t know, it creates an impoverished narrative. It’s like a coffee table book – more illustrations and less text.

It’s refreshing as Bolton recalls how they met and fell in love, while Brown goes through their evening routine of meeting up for a drink after get off work, ordering dinner, and generally watching a movie at home. Finally, a touch of closer contact. Incidentally, the house is a red-brick mansion on Manhattan’s East Side that was originally built around 1920 for Anne Vanderbilt, who shared the mansion with Browne’s dachshund Hector, the dog who provided the inspiration for the handbag of the same name. .

For those unfamiliar with Brown’s story, the film is engaging enough to cover the basics: his origins in Allentown, Pa.; his years of competitive swimming at the University of Notre Dame; his brief foray into acting in Los Angeles; The fashion line began modestly as a bespoke business in a New York studio apartment based on five sample suits he wore around town, and was initially ridiculed in the streets and aroused even among his friends. of attention.

Over time, Brown became influential with his bold reinvention of the most traditional garment in the mid-century American man’s wardrobe: the gray suit. Tight jackets, cropped trousers and an inch or two of exposed ankle began to appear everywhere. As the business grew, so did the size and drama of the fashion shows. The move into womenswear solidified the rejection of gender restrictions. “It really doesn’t make a difference who wears what,” Wintour said.

The spring 2018 collection was a breakthrough moment, as Browne sent male models down the runway wearing revamped versions of his womenswear collection. It turns out that men wearing skirts can look powerful and masculine. In the same year, Browne sold a majority stake in the company to Italy’s Ermenegildo Zegna Group for $500 million.

Brown doesn’t discuss the impact – Wintour points out early in the film that he never cared about what others were doing and was 100 percent focused on his own perspective. But he often returned to unifying core principles, building on quintessential American images—jocks, jocks, businessmen, cowboys, prom couples, Upper East Side WASPs—and subverting them. Think big coats with football jersey numbers emblazoned on the back; lobster-embroidered tweed plaid skirt suits.

Despite the PhD’s flaws in insight, analysis and even garment-making craftsmanship, Browne’s visual retrospective of her 20 years in the industry is consistently jaw-dropping and will delight fashion fans.

Models bring drama, and shows bring fantasy. Runway demo taken from Alice in Wonderland or little prince Supports Bolton’s observation that his partner’s work lies at the edge of childhood and adulthood, innocence and experience. He noted that while Brown was generally a happy, optimistic person, there was an air of melancholy that pervaded his performance.

A funeral-themed speech began with a mannequin rising from a coffin, weaving a story around two heartbroken women. The doctor who could not cure them turned into an angel and accompanied them to heaven, while their friends in costume came to mourn. Another game took place in a huge typing pool, equipped with identical tables. Men come to work, hang up the same trench coat, then sit down to work in the same suit, each placing an apple on the boss’s desk at the end of their shift. The show is strict, minimalist, yet fun.

Wearability isn’t always the most important issue, and nowhere was this more evident than at a fashion show in Paris that paid homage to French tweed while pairing it with iconic men’s sportswear pieces. The men wore crop tops (or in one case, a tiny crochet bikini top) paired with low-rise mini shorts or shorts that exposed Thom Browne’s jock straps and two inches of hip cleavage. The final runway look, traditionally a bridal look, was a cowboy wearing a curly blue sequined phallus.

Although Brown himself appears in the film as a less publicized book, his designs range from basic to lavish couture fantasies. One interviewee pointed out a key contradiction that makes the designer’s work so interesting: “He celebrates unity in the most profligate way.” The space for self-expression within this unity is what makes Brown’s clothes so coveted, and This documentary, as depressing as it is, is so worth watching.