New York Fashion Week: Thom Browne Thinks Big

When I saw Thom Browne's fall/winter 2010 runway collection would be showing at the Park Avenue Armory this season, I immediately envisioned the immense, 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall with its soaring barrel-vaulted ceiling where most of the fashion events take place (last season Yohji Yamamoto and French soccer player Zinedine Zidane memorably kicked soccer balls toward runway photographers at the culmination of a Y-3 show there). 

But once again, Browne was playing with proportions -- and expectations -- and attendees found themselves sequestered in small groups in one of four 19th-century-period reception rooms off to the left and right. (The room I was seated in, known as "The Veterans Room," is apparently one of only two remaining interiors in the world designed by Louis C. Tiffany Associated Artists.)