Always Fresh, Contained, Smile

Lately I had been rummaging the last bits of the past shows, caught in the gray, uneventful area weeks after the runway and weeks before the campaigns. Actually I was meaning to write an in-depth analysis on the Always Fresh tv commercials, you know, the one with those green plastic containers that preserve cookies for 40 days.

 

The first line itself is food for thought and meditation - "Hi! I'm Susan Williams!" I mean who the fuck is Susan Williams? I googled, and nothing relevant came up. There's Susan Williams, Ph.D.; there's Susan Williams Professor of Mathematics; there's even a Susan Williams who offered a hitman $20,000.00 in order to kill her husband. "I want him gone", she said. But to my great misfortune there is no Susan Williams under tv celebrity, storage mogul or food nanotechnology pioneer. Everytime someone brings the whole Susan issue I get depressed and confused, and immediately start cross-checking the facts. Last time my friend Les suggested that this Susan Lady had to be a "Psychotic Bitch", judging from the rather abnormal amount of Always Fresh containers kept in her fridge and cupboard. Still none of those containers seems sufficiently large as to store a beheaded skull or limbs, so "Psychotic Murderous Bitch" is very unlikely. There isn't much road to go from there I'm afraid.
Leaving Susan Williams behind, for now, I'm glad to say that the gray, uneventful area has turned into a gray, eventful area. This particularly means going from ladies who lunch..

...to ladies who brunch. Or some point in between. At least that's the place I like to assume Thom Browne took the subject from for his first foray into women's wear this Spring 2011 season. And though I've been his long time acolyte, there was no way to foresee what the man who sent two guys in 1.5 pants to the runway would do.

The preview, photographed by Tommy Ton, from JakandJil is set on a thick, classy atmosphere, heavy social drinking and busy chatting. Like his men's anklepants and a little too small suits, this scenario conveys all the discomfort and angst of the 30's economically unstable American middle class, whose motto seems to be "Perfect smile now! Keep the alcohol coming!"

Source

On the runway, I first resented the white/red/blue palette, feeling that Browne's gray scales and fabric range should speak volumes, but after some consideration I fell for it. It's the portray of a classic, politic, almost presidential(?) American woman, á la first lady in the Mad Men era. And yes, so much patriotism is meant to mock itself a little, but that's just Thom being Thom. It's a small price to pay, and what you get in exchange is perfect tailoring for women.