New York Fashion Week: Thom Browne builds a world of origami magic for a star-studded bird-themed show

Thom Browne's fall/winter 2025 collection showcased 64 whimsical looks, featuring intricate tailoring, colourful bird motifs, and a nod to collegiate style.

Thom Browne loves building fantastical worlds for his fashion shows, and his fall/winter 2025 collection was no exception. The designer filled a darkened Manhattan theatre space with 2,000 graceful white origami birds, many suspended in the air, as he closed out New York Fashion Week on Tuesday.

Eboni Nichols, Queen Latifah, Cara Delevingne, Cristin Milioti and Kerry Washington attend the Thom Browne fashion show. (Getty Images via AFP)

To a soundtrack of bird sounds, poetry like Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the Thing with Feathers,” and music evoking ornithological themes, Browne filled his runway with fanciful and inventive versions of his finely tailored suits, coats and jackets, some of them adorned with birds in brilliant colours, creeping across a jacket or coat.

A starry night

Oscar nominee Adrien Brody sat next to Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Married actors Morgan Spector and Rebecca Hall sat together in the front row. Other guests included Cara Delevingne, musician St Vincent and actors Cristin Milioti, Alessandro Nivola and Cole Escola.

Fashion for the birds

Browne takes his time with his runway shows. They can last two or three times a usual runway show and tell a full story. In this case, the story centred on two caged lovebirds, in a white birdcage, longing to be free. “How marvellous would it be,” they wonder, according to production notes, “to be exactly who we wish to be?”

The runway show began with two “ornithologists,” with briefcases and in gray Thom Browne “uniforms.” They sat at a desk, near the caged lovebirds, and began watching the flock of fashions.

Models followed, made up with coloured, feathery eyelashes and dressed in checks, tweeds, plaids, argyle knits or flannels. Browne's deconstructed or exaggerated shapes were, as usual, examples of highly inventive tailoring and silhouette work. There were 64 looks in all.

There were fanciful dresses, petticoats and a huge ball skirt. The most whimsical notes of all were the colourful bird motifs, in satin stitch or gold bullion embroidery, finding their way across garments.

There was also a nod to collegiate style, with a brown varsity-style jacket emblazoned with “65,” a reference to Browne’s birth year.

As always there were a few eye-popping handbags, including Browne’s favourite Hector bag, inspired by his own canine companion.

A Valentine's gift

Whenever he shows in New York in February, Browne comes out at the end and presents a Valentine’s Day gift to his partner, Andrew Bolton, curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This time, in keeping with the monochrome origami theme, Browne ran out with a bouquet of white flowers.