Toronto Fashion Week: Thomas’ colourless, androgynous showing full of wearable pieces

THOMAS Spring 2011. Photography by Jenna Marie Wakani

Michael Thomas and Drew Thomas (no relation) don’t make it easy for you to like their clothes. Shrill music and dour models don’t inspire blood lust in everyone, which is fine, because Thomas isn’t meant to appeal to the masses. The kind of androgynous, seasonless dressing put forth by the pair finds fairly recent ancestry in Paris-based Canadian designer Rad Hourani. (An aside: Does androgynous and seasonless also have to mean colourless? Can’t both sexes wear blue all year?)

Look closely, though, and you’ll spot clothes that are more wearable than the apocalyptic styling would suggest. Slim pants, articulated at the knee to reveal a slice of skin are a nice update on the cigarette pant and oversized sheer button-ups work as a dress or a shirt. An asymmetrical zipped jacket would slip neatly into many a wardrobe, ditto the vests with trailing zippers or the pouch-like sweaters.

See a gallery of the Thomas show»

Read our full coverage of Toronto Fashion Week»

More Style