Thom Browne Merges Fashion, Home, and Theater at Milan Design Week

The Special Presentation Highlighted the Designer’s Frette Collaboration and Push Into Homewares

For his first outing at Milan Design Week, Thom Browne staged a theatrical presentation that highlighted his homeware collaboration with Frette as part of the event’s Salone del Mobile furniture festival.

Titled “Time to Sleep,” the installation was held at the Palazzina Appiani, a neoclassical gem that sits in the city’s Parco Sempione and was originally built in the early 19th century as an entrance hall for the arena. Providing an intriguing contrast with this opulent space, the presentation centers around six utilitarian cots. These spartan beds are dressed with custom Thom Browne by Frette bedding in cotton sateen and featuring the designer’s signature four-bar stripe. The performance takes shape around these beds as a locale for subversive dreams: models individually enter in their underwear, but only go to sleep after they get dressed in their gray Thom Browne suits.

The designer confirmed that his partnership with Frette, a more-than-century-old Italian luxury linens house, will be an ongoing collaboration. The partnership continues Thom Browne’s recent extension of its homewares, which, in addition to womenswear, has been the target of expansion opportunities for the brand.