Thom Browne Visits Upstate New York for High Winter Campaign Shoot

Thom Browne took a jaunt upstate for his fall collection shoot.

The designer recreated a dinner at Stissing House and a day in Amenia, N.Y., to showcase his high winter collection. Among the friends and family who were invited to the festivities were “The Gilded Age“’s Morgan Spector, Louisa Jacobson and Denée Benton, and actors Rebecca Hall, Sean Kaufman, Minnie Mills, Sydney Lemmon and her brother Jon Lemmon. 

The guests wore pieces from Browne’s fall collection, including technical outerwear, down-filled coats, corduroy and wool pinstripe suits, gingham plaids, cashmere cardigans, tromp-l’oeil dresses, a pencil skirt in sheer black silk organza and checked pleated skirts. The brand’s four-bar graphic was featured on everything from varsity leather bomber jackets to wool zip pullovers.

“Everything starts with tailoring and evolves from there,” Browne said. “That’s what I wanted people to see in these images: classic ideas that originate from that first gray suit I created over 20 years ago: in black tie, in trompe-l’oeil dresses, even in the Japanese-cut selvedge denim.”

The designer said the outerwear in particular is “really an extension of these ideas in the purest form. You can see the lines of my classic suits in the down jackets but the functionality changes, creating the perfect piece for day or night — my way.”

Browne said he opted to create an upstate dinner party because he loves the idea of taking “very classic ideas and putting them into settings that might be unexpected or are rooted in rich history — almost subverting the way people think about the clothing. A lot of people recognize me for my office aesthetic and what they see in the stores or through my campaigns, but there’s also the way I approach my personal life, which is even more rigorous.”

He said the colonial-style architecture of the Stissing House and the Shaker food that Clare de Boer curated for the evening worked to highlight the tailoring and outerwear showcased in the line.
And while not all of the line was formal, black tie was among the statements for the season.

“I still love seeing people get dressed,” Browne said. “There’s something so unique about a group of people coming together to celebrate each other in this way — and everyone looks so good in black-tie tailoring.”

It doesn’t hurt that the group got along so well and showcased the collection so effortlessly, he added. “The most important thing for me is that there is a mutual appreciation for each other — that’s what makes these moments so authentic,” Browne said of the people he picked to be in the images. “We all understand each other’s points of views and appreciate the way we show up for each other, and everything else is so natural. Seeing everyone in their black-tie felt so good — old friends and new.”