On a sunny Tuesday morning in Milan, Thom Browne dropped by his menswear store in the city’s historic shopping district. In one of the terrazzo-floored rooms sat a tiny twin bed designed by the French modernist Jacques Adnet in the 1950s, the bedspread so taut it could have been folded by a drill sergeant. The crisp white linens were made by Frette as part of the new Thom Browne home line the designer was set to unveil with a special performance at Salone del Mobile, the international furniture fair that’s kind of like fashion week for couches. Towels, pillows, and blankets—all adorned with the brand’s four-bar stripe motif—sat nearby. After inspecting the bed, Browne appeared satisfied. “I like a firm mattress,” he said.
The fashion designer was wearing a leather jacket and jeans—just kidding. Browne is a man of habit par excellence, whose rigid aesthetic preferences complement his precise daily routines. As sure as the sun rises in the east, Browne starts his day with a breakfast of white toast (ordered well-done) and black coffee, and wears a small gray short suit, white oxford button-down, narrow tie, gray cardigan, and black brogues.
Browne built his growing fashion empire on this neo-salaryman uniform (the brand’s sales hit a new high of $400 million last year), and used it to establish himself as one of the most prominent American designers working today. His exacting vision is so compelling it has inspired legions of Thom Browne fans to dress just like him. And now they can live like Thom Browne, too.
“Like so many things we do, I thought, why not?” Browne told me of introducing home goods. It was, he explained over coffee and toast at the nearby Four Seasons, a natural move. “I’ve used Frette sheets forever,” Browne said. Frette, a luxury Italian linen brand founded in 1860, has never collaborated with a designer before, but Browne said the partnership developed seamlessly. “I knew exactly what I wanted to do,” he said, which was to issue the exact same crisp white 300-thread count cotton sateen bedding Browne himself sleeps on.
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Courtesy of Thom Browne
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Courtesy of Thom Browne
The line also includes Browne’s favorite crystal coupes and tumblers by Baccarat, silver ice buckets by Christofle, and porcelain tea sets by Haviland, all of which also figure into his daily routines. “I looked under my cups at the Ritz and they used Haviland,” he said, referencing his home-away-from-home in Paris. “I thought, if it’s good enough for the Ritz, it’s good enough for me.”
The home has always been a fascinating part of Thom Browne’s world. The designer selects the furniture in his brand’s retail stores, which are designed without fixtures so that he can fill them with Nakashima benches and Paul McCobb bar carts. But his homes reveal an even more personal sense of interior discipline. A 2016 Architectural Digest spread of his Greenwich Village bachelor pad is somewhat legendary in part because it was the first time many realized just how thoroughly Browne embodied his brand. The place included no fewer than four antique bar carts, but the centerpiece was his Adnet bed that looked no bigger than an army cot. It was interpreted as a sign of Browne’s radical devotion to his vision of reimagined mid-century luxury.
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