Thom Browne, the brand, has attracted a cohort of New York theater folk, including your costars Christine Baranski and Morgan Spector. Why do you think that is? Did you feel a particular affinity with the brand prior to this project?
Thom’s designs reimagine men’s suiting—an icon of American capitalism, a symbol of one’s desire to rise above one’s station. In the American imagination, the number of suits a person owns is proportionate to their wealth and influence. Thom has both embraced and subverted that lineage with humor and playfulness, but also gravitas. I love that the show parallels that attitude by embracing a dark and iconic piece of American literature. Poe was mysterious and macabre, but equally witty and wry. And I’m a lit major, so I’m a sucker for a good poem. What I love about wearing Thom Browne is that it speaks to a level of androgyny I respond to in clothes; I have never felt completely safe and whole or even sexy in the utterly feminine. I suspect that it gives all of us the power that comes with uniting both sides of our nature, expressed in a way that is at once universal and entirely individual.
Had you ever read The Raven before? If yes, what was it like to revisit it in this context, and if not, what did you feel when reading it for the first time? Do you have a favorite line from it?
Oh, yes. I majored in English (and Spanish) literature at the University of Mount Union. What I loved most about revisiting the poem was the challenge of speaking aloud Poe’s very specific punctuation, which both encourages the rhythm and breaks it. It’s a very witty poem—horror, with the twinkle of deftness—and we recognize its cadence immediately. I love the assonance of the line, “And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.” It’s very satisfying to speak aloud.
Last but not least, inquiring minds need to know: What’s more comfortable, a Thom Browne corset or a The Gilded Age one?
Thom Browne’s! If you want to cinch up that waist, go for it. But it has all the elegance of a garment on display—you don’t have a bunch of layers slapped on top.