On Monday night, The LGBT Center in Manhattan's West Village opened its doors for its annual Fashion Centered fundraiser - the only private event held onsite each year. The evening honored Thom Browne with the Center's Lifetime Achievement Award, supported by presenting sponsor Pandora (a brand that, fittingly, traces its origins to 1982 as a jeweler celebrating personal expression), alongside Jean Paul Gaultier (whose 1980s corsetry and gender-fluid designs redefined lingerie as outerwear), Supreme, and Ferragamo (the Florentine shoemaker that dressed Hollywood's golden age and, later, embraced queer aesthetics).
In the courtyard, guests like June Ambrose, Cass Bird, and Lourdes Leon mingled over cocktails, while inside, the crowd ascended past Keith Haring's "Once Upon a Time" mural - a permanent reminder that queer art has long woven itself into the fabric of New York's cultural history. Haring's bold, cartoonish figures, often drawn on subway posters, were themselves a form of public intimacy, much like the corset, the garter, or the slip: garments that speak without words.
Janelle Monáe, dressed in a theatrical runway look from Browne's latest collection, introduced the honoree with a phrase that could double as a manifesto for lingerie's own history: "They both believe every person deserves to be seen in full." Browne, in his signature uniform - though he admitted to accidentally wearing a lighter jacket with darker trousers - accepted the award with characteristic humility. "I think I'm turning into my mother," he joked, recalling her habit of wearing mismatched shoes.
Browne's work has always blurred the line between the tailored and the intimate, much like the garments in our museum's collection. His gray suits, cropped trousers, and exaggerated proportions challenge the rigid codes of menswear, inviting a conversation about who gets to wear what - and why. That conversation, like the evening itself, is about more than fabric. It's about the soul wearing it.
Originally reported by WWD