25 Years Ago, This Suit Changed Menswear Forever. It Still Looks Radical
Very few suits alter the course of menswear history. But we’d wager that most guys with even a passing interest in tailoring could identify one of Thom Browne’s paradigm-shifting suits on sight alone.
Browne introduced his shrunken gray suit 25 years ago. In the time since, its impossible-to-miss signifiers haven’t changed all that much. The 3-roll-2 jacket that just meets the hip bone; the high, narrow armholes; the slim, cropped trousers that land a handful of inches above the shoes (ideally a pair of pebble-grain brogues). With its cheeky nods to the mid-century man in gray flannel, Browne’s hero product shocked and awed the industry when it debuted, and it looks as startlingly contemporary now as it did then.
Browne’s suits have also crossed over into the popular subconscious through decades of cosigns from the world’s most elite athletes. Amid a grueling playoff run in 2016, LeBron James famously outfitted the entire Cleveland Cavaliers team in the designer’s wares; just a couple of years later, Lionel Messi and FC Barcelona embraced his suits as their official off-field uniforms. So when Browne debuts his fall 2026 collection on Friday at the GQ Bowl, it’ll be a fitting milestone for a brand inextricably linked to the sports-fashion crossover.
While we’re toasting Browne’s game-changing suiting, though, it’s worth noting that the designer has always offered more than his house-speciality silhouette. Jackets and trousers cut with just a little more breathing room have long been a part of his program, originally through the brand’s made-to-measure service, and now via his own stores and blue-chip retailers across the globe. (Nordstrom, for example, has a pitch-perfect version available right here.)
While Browne’s classic-leaning suits eschew the dramatic extremes of their runway counterparts, they still bear the hallmarks of his sensibility as a tailor: narrow shoulders, slim lapels, striped grosgrain loop tab on the back collars. (Crucially, many of them come with unfinished trousers, so you can hem them to your preference.) This form of Browne’s tailoring performs many of the same tricks as his more expressive styles—emphasizing your shoulders and waist, say, or magically making your legs look longer. Even before the brand was acquired by the Zegna Group in 2018, Browne was using its storied mills to produce much of his collection, so the quality of his fabrics is reliably next-level.
In 2026, the radical provocation of a Thom Browne suit—a garment most of us would otherwise trot out for life’s more mundane appointments—has yet to wear off. Since Browne brought his fabric shears to fashion week, he’s incorporated a version of the gray suit into every one of his can’t-miss runway shows, evolving it to meet the needs of the moment. Come Friday night in San Francisco, we’ll be eagerly awaiting its latest victory lap.
The official GQ Bowl livestream will kick off here on GQ.com and on GQ’s YouTube channel starting at 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET.
