Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne

Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne

Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York.

Thom Browne, SS16, New York.

The layered suiting ensembles at Thom Browne for Spring-Summer 2016 were embellished with carefully worked appliqué. The motifs were cut in a variety of fabrics and subtle pastel tones and were often spliced into fragments across front closures and shattered across pleated skirts.

It is interesting to think about the planning that would need to go into embellishment that is this detailed. For a start, you’d want to have the fit right of the basic garments before planning the placements of the motifs, since fit changes later would probably be a nightmare, and could throw off the whole sense of proportion of each design.

For the appliqué and possibly patchworked sections that run across the pleats, you’ve got the extra consideration of planning which parts of the designs split onto the top of each pleat. Or to put this another way, you can’t have the motif on the inside folds or pleat underlays since they won’t be visible.

Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 1. Appliqué split over spaces between pleats.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 2. Appliqué may be created while fabric is flat and unpleated. Shows Pleat space, pleat depth and pleat underlay.

The pleat underlays in the collection are also used to great effect in the collection, since rather than all being from the same self fabric, the underlays are sometimes pieced in as separate panels, allowing multiple contrast colours to be used. Sometimes this is used with subtle tonal variations, or at other times black is used to pierce through the appliqué to create a more graphic effect.

Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 3. Appliqué details split over pleats.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 4. Same design echoed across different layers.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 5. Different fabrics used for different sections of appliqué.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 6. Striking white in different textures.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 7. Pastel colours in different prints and textures.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 8.Pleat underlay cut in contrast colour
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 9. Bold stripes fragmented across closures and pleats.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 10. Floral motifs split across pockets and pleats.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 11. Appliqué worked over welt pocket and pocket flaps.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 12. Pleat udnerlays cut in different colours.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 13. Pleat width and underlays cut in different fabrics.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 14. Stripes cut across sleeve, body and lapel facing.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 15. Appears to be overlaid with layer of lace.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 16. Striking black contrast on pleat underlay.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 17. Pastels layered over black.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 18.
Shattered, Pleated Appliqué at Thom Browne | The Cutting Class. Thom Browne, SS16, New York, Image 19. Tiers of sequinned pleating.

Images from Vogue.co.uk»

Pleat images by The Cutting Class»

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