Thom Browne celebrated the release of a new portfolio of images and limited-edition zine with a Champagne reception and short discussion at the Pierre Augustin Rose Gallery in New York on Thursday night.
During the discussion, Browne was joined by London-based photographer Robbie Lawrence, writer Durga Chew-Bose and curator Aaron Stern to discuss their own contributions to the creative project, which happens to feature the designer’s recent collaboration with Asics.
Shot in the span of 10 days, the project, dubbed “The Working Hour,” captures a series of images among the streets, cafés, train cars, architecture and landscaping of Tokyo.
The result is a portfolio of daily life in Japan, with the cast wearing signature Thom Browne tailoring along with the designer’s recent sneaker collaboration with Asics. And given Browne’s recent Asics tie-up, it’s only fitting to have a series of photos and video centered around running, with other subtle nods to youth punk culture and decades-long heritage.
An image from “The Working Hour.”
Courtesy of Thom Browne
Browne, who noted that he often brainstorms new ideas while running, noted during the discussion that this visual project was all about “trust,” which allowed him to pass the creative reins to Lawrence to bring his depth of photography knowledge to the project “without restrain.”
“I trusted [Lawrence] and handed over, really, 25 years of my work,” Browne said. “What resulted were photos that perfectly embodied [Lawrence’s] interpretation of what I do in such a beautiful, new and interesting way.”
Lawrence, who noted that he works mostly in long-form documentary settings, added that it is “quite rare” for him to be granted the freedom like Browne gave to reinterpret someone else’s body of work.
An image from “The Working Hour.”
Courtesy of Thom Browne
“This whole idea stemmed from me reaching out to Tom and asking him to let me apply my thoughts about what he’s been doing through his career and applying it to the photoshoot without much restriction,” Lawrence said. “And then, in a similar vein, Aaron took my work and reinterpreted it. So, I think it’s been an interesting process of sort of allowing people to trust each other with their work in quite a spontaneous fashion. Spontaneity, too, I think is something worth celebrating.”
To bring these images together into a zine, Chew-Bose lent her creative voice through text to interpret how these ideas can be translated into prose-based narratives — hinting at themes found within the rich history of Browne and Lawrence’s work.
Inside the Pierre Augustin Rose Gallery in New York.
Bre Johnson/BFA.com
For her part, Chew-Bose added at the event that when she was developing the zine’s text, she spoke to Brown and Lawrence a lot about “doing one thing over time really well.”
“There are cycles, there’s nostalgia, there’s artists who constantly feel a sense of urgency in terms of reinventing themselves,” Chew-Bose explained. “And then there are artists who kind of want to chip away at the same thing, or, like, kind of repurpose and revisit, and I think both Thom and Robbie share that.”
“You always have an image in your mind of what you’ve done with your work,” Browne added. “And I think that is something that has always been so important to me, is creating something that actually validates the reason for doing what I do.”
