As far as fashion weeks go, they have grown into gargantuan media spectacles. Once held for a nimble number of attendees, these days, fashion month causes traffic gridlock, skyrocketing travel fares, plus a lot of social media noise. Now, as the worlds of fashion and interiors collide, the style set have set their sights on a different kind of hubbub – Salone del Mobile Milano, the furniture fair in Italy’s fashion capital, Milan, which attracts the great and good of the interior design world.

‘I used to travel to Milan for fashion week, and it was something that always came up among editors and publicists. They’d be like, “Oh, you think this is fun? You should come to Salone,”’ says journalist Emilia Petrarca. Wallpaper* magazine’s fashion director Jason Hughes has been a regular at the design fair for years. ‘Salone del Mobile has long been a destination for discovering what’s new in interiors and we’ve seen fashion’s interest in homeware grow stronger in recent years, responding  to the desire for interiors to become extensions of our wardrobes. Fashion brands are creating fully fledged interiors collections, often collaborating with established or emerging designers from the interior design world, which is key to the success of those partnerships.

Another fashion expat who’s joined the pilgrimage across the Atlantic to Salone is the feted American fashion designer Thom Browne, who just presented a collection for the first time, in collaboration with the Italian luxury bedding company Frette. Titled ‘…time to sleep…’ and set in a 19th century French-built arena hall, the performance saw models dressed in Thom Browne by Frette bathrobes and linens. And what exactly do Thom Browne linens look like? White, of course. ‘For me, sheets should only be white,’ he says when we speak over Zoom ahead of the presentation. 

That is one of Browne’s rules. Dressed in his uniform of a grey suit, white shirt, necktie and flashes of his red, white and blue striped logo, he prefers to keep things simple. He doesn’t like lots of stuff, nor is he much into change. Instead, he’s got an exacting eye for what he wants. ‘I’ve worked really hard in the past 20 years that my [brand] has been around in staying very focused and making sure that you saw what I did in a very singular and focused way.’ 

The brand’s signature uniform is a prime example: every employee receives a starter kit (two grey suits, five white shirts, one grey wool tie and one white pocket square) alongside a detailed PDF on how to wear it (shirts are never ironed, the top button remains undone, neckties are to be tucked into waistbands. Navy is only permitted from Friday to Sunday and white sneakers can only be worn on weekends). What sounds militant is an exercise to create tradition by repetition, and has helped establish the business as one of US fashion’s greatest pillars. 

His foray into homeware is similarly fuss-free. Before his collaboration with Frette, he launched a collection with the French luxury manufacturer of fine crystal, Baccarat, last November. Tapping into the business of designer collaborations is an unexpected move for Browne but, given his penchant for perfection, it makes perfect sense. ‘I don’t really like collaborations,’ he says wryly. ‘I only want to do them when
it’s a really authentic relationship and it is something that is true to me as a person.’ Next to Baccarat and Frette, Browne’s also got collections with Christofle, the Parisian goldsmith specialising in silver tableware, and Haviland, the Limoges porcelain manufacturer, in the pipeline. ‘I love the association with them and we have the luxury of being able to work with the best for these specific items. I only want to work with people who are best at what they do and the group of brands – Frette, Baccarat, Christofle and Haviland – well, they are the best at what they do. As conceptual as I can be in regards to how I show my collections, the most important thing for me is the quality of how my collections are made.’ 

Has he put the quality to the test then? ‘The Baccarat [collection] I have definitely used quite often.’ And what about the Christofle cigarette case? ‘I don’t smoke. But I love the romance of when people open up a cigarette case and take out a cigarette.’ The designs are a far cry from many logo-heavy designer collaborations. Delicate stripes adorn porcelain teapots, crystal glasses and silver ice buckets.  

Browne isn’t a man of many complicated words when it comes to describing his design process. Has he picked up any new skills while working with those heritage brands? ‘No, I just let them do what they do.’ Was it difficult switching from designing clothes to homeware? ‘No, it’s the same mindset and making sure that it’s done in the best way.’ So far, so Thom. Does he have a favourite piece? ‘I love all of them. I have the Baccarat already and am looking forward to having the rest of them at home.’ 

A home that he shares with his husband, Andrew Bolton, head curator of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Met in New York. Their Brooklyn brownstone townhouse is filled with Giacometti coffee tables and French mid-century furniture, he says, and the occasional tchotchke that finds its way home from hotels around the world. ‘Sometimes, I pick up a couple of pieces while I’m staying in hotels and they end up in my home, funnily,’ he smiles. And while his most frequently visited hotels, like the Ritz in Paris and Claridge’s in London, as well as some of his favourite artists and architects (Freud and Philip Johnson, to name but two) have inspired his journey into homeware to a small extent, his newest venture is all his doing. ‘I wanted it to be what I would have at home. And at home I like things to be simple and understated.’