Thom Browne takes flight in New York with feathers, herons and magpies

Thom Browne has said that if one of his catwalk shows receives only positive reviews, he worries he has played it too safe. He much prefers to ruffle a few feathers.Literally so, this season. Birds, which along with shrunken grey suits are a Thom Browne signature, were everywhere. The models’ eyelashes, made from bright feathers, had a wingspan that dusted the collar. Above the catwalk, 2,000 origami birds were suspended in flight.But Browne may be disappointed this season, because these clothes were easy to love. Jackets and coats in British-made tweeds, their proportions tweaked rather than distorted, were charmingly embroidered

with herons and magpies drawn from the luscious watercolours of John J Audubon’s Birds of America anthology. “I mix the conceptual with the classic, and it seems to work,” as he put it with a shrug after this show.Browne wants to make clothes that are used, worn and worn again and again, embedded into real lives. Hence why he loves a suit, that 9-to-5, bread-and-butter uniform. But the skewed proportions of Browne’s suiting, with their tight sleeves and short legs, are a wink to camera by which the wearer tells the world that they are game for taking risks. David