Thom Browne, Michael Kors, and Norma Kamali

Last, but very not least, Tuesday witnessed the final action in the six-day New York Fashion Week. And the best so far, with powerful displays by three key American designers – Thom Browne, Michael Kors and Norma Kamali.
 

Thom Browne: Ornithology

“The key to American fashion is mixing the classic with the conceptual,” insisted Browne, who mashed up Japanese culture, New England style, his fetish little gray suit, and bird watching, in a bold and frequently beautiful show.

Presented in the Griffin Theater on the top floor of The Shed, a giant show space in Hudson Yards, the scene was set by hundreds of artfully folded origami paper birds, a flock swarming around a classic work desk on which a single white budgie perched in a white cage.
 
Scores of robins, crows, magpies or hawks flew across the collection, delicately embroidered over a great collection of classic country-house fabrics. All the worsted tweeds, windowpane checks and Prince of Wales checks – often used in patchworks – were developed especially for the collection by British and Irish mills. Classic materials also enhanced with graphic lines of strass, crystals medallions.

Browne’s love of Japan was apparent throughout: narrow floor-hugging skirts with kimono-shaped jackets, albeit with buttons. The girls and guys wearing maiko hair styles with kanzashi-type ornaments. In some remarkable makeup – light feathers seemingly sprouted out of many women’s eyelashes. Other cast members had blackened eyebrows, in a visual pun on this past weekend’s Super Bowl.
 
Occasionally, Thom would coat coats in wax, making them looked like worn leather in Imperial Roman Purple or Rothko yellows. Though his coolest invention were bias-cut cocktails made in slanting lines of classic preppy ties, worsted wool and satin. Call it the ‘Preptail’. 

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Post-show, the designer revealed that he had been inspired by a recent documentary on bird watching, and his cast were shod for that hobby – in giant waders or LL Bean-style duck boots, though in Thom’s fetish cadet gray.  The same hue provided the base for a ginormous wedding dress worn by Alek Wek. Acres of folds, topped by a glittering kimono style jacket – just like the one that opened the show.

Browne’s shows can at times become faintly academic displays of fashion historicism. But not this season, where Thom broke through lots of barriers, creating what is probably his most astute, elegant and unexpected collection in an already unique career.
 
It felt a fitting finale to the season by Browne, who also happens to be president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which governs the runway calendar in New York. Clearly in excellent form, Thom celebrated this final moment by presenting his front row husband, master fashion curator Andrew Bolton, with a bouquet of flowers. 
 

Michael Kors: Degagé in Chelsea

Michael Kors has had enough with cell phones and hyperactivity, and his latest collection certainly showed that.

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Cut far more forgivingly, with a good deal of slouch and lots of pockets, his new wardrobe for next fall was the most relaxed and insouciant in New York.
 
“The world is very crazy. Every 10 minutes we have a news alert. It’s too much. We spend too much time on our phones, and I wanted to bring people a sense of calm but still something that makes them feel confident, feels luxurious when they touch it, something special that stands the test of time,” explained Kors, in a pre-show preview in his 42nd Street headquarters.
 
Michael sent out blazers so wide they moved sensuously; black leather trench coats were softened and made with huge folds; many gals wore boyfriend jackets that looked two sizes too large. Skirts were ever so pleated and hung asymmetrically; trenches were hyper fluid; and jackets were forgiving as cardigans. 

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“America is the place where comfort became king. But the French have the best word for it, ‘degage’,” he said, pointing to a mood board that included to timeless icons like Uma Thurman and Lauren Hutton.
 
The setting was super concise – a clean extended runway modernism with hints of Noguchi or George Nakashima, whose furniture Michael collects. And whose determination not to waste material was the inspiration for a great new bag, made of a single piece of leather without seams. Though, Michael did also finish his Manhattan bags in faux horsehair to add plenty of dash. 
 
Above all, the collection felt like a very deliberate counterblast to excess. And to Kanye West and his wife Bianca Censori, who wore a completely sheer dress with no underwear to the recent Grammy Awards.
 
“I am not going to mention names, but that was ridiculous. Sexy is about movement,” sniffed Kors.
 

Norma Kamali: Back with a bang

Norma Kamali is back, and how. Following a crash course in AI she took at MIT, the veteran’s latest designs have a new elan, seen in an excellent collection unveiled on Tuesday morning.

Kamali staged her first presentation in many years in the West Village, the neighborhood she calls her home. The new selection for fall 2025 revisited Norma’s classics – like the famed sleeping bag coat or her second skin leather looks. But took them somewhere new. The former appearing in some great new autumnal prints of silver birch and fallen leaves, where AI will help guarantee that copying would be prevented.
 
While her vegan leather ideas were the hippest in New York. Second skin shirts; figure-hugging rocker coats; thicker flared dresses; a series of chauffeur jackets or even cheongsams. Shown on stockman, many wearing fedoras, trilbys and bowlers.
 
Norma’s sense of futurism was also apparent in some clever jumpsuits – that recalled her famed early parachutes – and great padded gingham intergalactic traveler parkas, which like everything in the collection can be machine washed. 
 
Business is now brisk with vendors like Revolve and MyTheresa boasting high sales. 
 
Not bad going for an 79-year-old lady who still owns all her own brand, 56 years after founding it. 
Hats off to Norma.