Thom Browne’s Corporate Playground
SSENSE
Oct 26 2019
Pursuing Work-Life Balance with Thom Browne Fall/Winter 2017
Contemporary corporate landscapes simultaneously resemble boardrooms and playgrounds. The architects of such designs employ bizarre tactics to seduce ultra-ambitious professionals. A slide in the lobby, a forest of nap-pods. ‘Work-life balance’ is not just an empty platitude, but an obsession. The belief is that somewhere in this dichotomy between reality and artifice, lies the key to fulfillment. Jason Nocito, Avena Gallagher, and Charlap Hyman & Herrero take us into a surreal landscape of corporate hysteria featuring Thom Browne’s Fall/Winter 2017 collection.
Wet for CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC Danko and Ana Steiner Document Raf Simons' Revamp of the American Fashion House , echoes the voice of David Bowie. The ocean is a spectrum of fluidity — there’s an ambiguity about the seashore on an overcast day that inhibits specificity. If you washed ashore tomorrow, where would you be? Raf Simons ’ debut at CALVIN KLEIN does not ask to be defined. It is an alloy of work-wear, decadence and functionality — a leveraging, perhaps, of his experience with furniture design. The epitome of luxury, when something wears as well as it looks. 
Mackintosh’s Prodigy Kiko Kostadinov Processing the Invisible Purpose of Mackintosh Having been tasked with reinventing a label so reputable its most distinguished garment bears its name, Kiko Kostadinov defies expectations. Now as the designer of Mackintosh 0001, he demands a new sense of simplicity. 
Nike × Off-White: Fresh “Air” Four Days in London with Nike and Virgil Abloh It’s day three of Nike and Virgil Abloh’s Off Campus summit in London, and I’m chatting with graphic designer Neville Brody following a workshop he directed on DIY zine-making. “Okay, this is a stepping stone for kids to get their shoes,” Brody says. “But how much more is it?” I had travelled to London to answer this exact question. Is streetwear-as-scholarship just the newest mutation of experiential branding? And, even if it is, does that prevent it from providing legitimately meaningful experiences for its participants? The Off Campus events were multi-day, interactive symposia celebrating the release of The “Ten” collaboration—10 ultra-limited Nike sneakers ranging from foundational totems like the Jordan 1 to future classics like the Vapormax, all reworked by Abloh.