Show Report
In shiny nylon they were reminiscent of Sloane Ranger apparel, and indeed will be worn as is by many Moncler fans rather than Browne fanatics.
Thom Browne is a man who likes rules. He always couches the fey and whimsy of his menswear in the meat-and-potatoes respectability of the classic suit - and for Moncler Gamme Bleu, he has a whole new set of rules to strain against, those of sportswear. What happens when you collide sports with suiting? Well, you end up on a terribly English fox-hunt, of course - that's where the tailored suit originated in the eighteenth-century, so it isn't a far flung conclusion.
In case you were left in any doubt when the knee-high boots, jodhpurs and hunting pinks began to appear, Browne sent his pack of A/W Moncler Gamme Bleu models out dragging reluctant foxhounds in front of a phalanx of horses that could have been lifted straight from a Stubbs painting. I'm not sure how many cut-away coats came with down-stuffed sleeves back then, or their tails padded into a train-cum-duvet in Royal Stuart tartan - those of course are Browne's idiosyncratic asides, a way to knock the stuffing out of modern masculinity.
At Moncler, that stuffing-knocking is always metaphorical. The house is best known for those feather-insulated coats, and with Milan turning up the volume on everything above the waist, they felt especially relevant for next season. Browne deconstructed them, combining them with ultra-trad English country wear such as the Norfolk jacket or Harris tweed blazer, sometimes cross-hatching quilting across his whole outfit and sometimes choosing to emphasis only parts (the sleeves, especially, came in for the Michellin Man treatment).
In shiny nylon they were reminiscent of Sloane Ranger apparel, and indeed will be worn as is by many Moncler fans rather than Browne fanatics. That was another clever move: Browne's niche can only run so deep, and for all the men brave enough to don his gay apparel, there are many more hankering after classic outwear his hand has barely altered. More's the shame for the world's streets.
