Everything old is new again. Just ask Thom Browne.

The designer made the cross-country trek to San Francisco to show his fall men’s and women’s collection during the run-up to the Super Bowl on Friday night as part of GQ Bowl, the magazine’s fashion and sports event.

In a livestreamed show from the Legion of Honor museum in the City by the Bay, Browne took the opportunity to revisit some of the signature pieces from his decades-long career.

“The collection is really a reintroduction of what I’ve been doing for 25 years,” he told WWD during a preview. “It’s very classically inspired, reintroducing what I did 25 years ago in regards to the proportional tailoring with the classic jacket and the bottoms that go with it, and the sack jacket and the bottoms that go with that. So it’s a play with proportion and a reintroduction of my take on tailoring and how tailoring and sportswear sometimes become one.”

Browne said that by showing just before what is arguably America’s biggest single sporting event, he will be introduced to “a new audience that is seeing the collection for the first time.” And for the long-time Thom Browne fan, it revisits some of their favorites.

“Over the last decades, I’ve done so much conceptual work in regards to taking that gray suit and turning it upside down and stretching it in all different ways, and I think sometimes people have forgotten that this classic idea is where it all starts.”

It also ties well into the current trend toward “real clothes,” he acknowledged.

“This collection is very real and very special, because the fabrications, the level of construction, the level of detailing, the level of embroideries are really special,”  he said. “They’re really well-made, real clothes and timeless clothes that you can invest in and wear forever. There’s nothing seasonal about them — they’re just really special pieces.”

Among the more-special pieces was a Perfecto leather jacket in a bomber style for men and a longer version for women. Browne also offered up a jacket and skirt with a winter Nantucket scene on it — complete with a shark motif — that he paired with a classic cricket sweater under a hand-painted coat.

The showstoppers, however, were the final two looks: a wide-shoulder trench in a gray tulle with a gunmetal beaded degrade cable knit for women followed by a double-breasted Chesterfield cape in gray boiled wool embroidered with cut bugle beads to form the degrade cable knit for men.

The San Francisco show will be the designer’s reveal for the fall season, replacing Paris and New York, where he has shown in the past.

“I’ve said for the last three years at the CFDA that I think it’s important that we as designers represent American fashion, not just in Paris, Milan and New York, and take what we do to different places,” he said. “And this was the perfect opportunity. I’m so inspired by sports, but I think it’s also nice to be able to show the collections to a new audience.”

Browne had three former and current NFL players walking in the show: Marcus Allen, a former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker; Justin Jefferson, a former Minnesota Viking, and Deandre Hopkins, a wide receiver from the Baltimore Ravens.

He added that the pieces they wore in the show didn’t really need too much tailoring, and because none had ever appeared on the catwalk before, it actually helped him gain a renewed appreciation for his chosen field.

“They’re so excited,” Browne said of the players. “And having these world-class, superstar athletes so excited about fashion is special. Marcus Allen said this was his Super Bowl. We’ve been doing this for so long, and sometimes we’re on the cycle of doing the same thing four times a year and forget how special it is to create clothes and experiences for people. I just want to make sure we never forget how unique and special the world is that we get to create.”

Although sports played a role in the show, Browne said he didn’t want to get “too heavy-handed” with football references, opting instead to reintroduce some of his most-classic pieces for the players and models. That included tailored parkas, suits woven from high-twist wool yarns, a blouson flight jacket in waterproof cashmere and shearling duffle coats.

For those not lucky enough to score a seat, the livestream of the show kicked off with a retrospective of Browne’s career and included clips from his 2006 show at an ice rink in New York and his debut couture women’s show in Paris in 2023. The show started with a long walk through the city by actor and Internet personality Vinnie Hacker, who ultimately hit the runway at the Legion of Honor. There, award-winning actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen, sat at a desk under Auguste Rodin’s monumental bronze sculpture, The Three Shades, reading passages from Dante’s “Inferno” as the models walked. 

Although the show was centered around some of Browne’s biggest hits, there was something new on the runway as well. The designer revealed his first sneaker collaboration with Asics on a limited-edition reworking of the Gel-Kayano 14. The shoe featured elevated piping and stitching, a gray and white striped insole, and the designer’s signature red, white and blue tab on the back.

The show also drew a long list of bold-face names to the front row including Francois Arnaud, Saquon Barkley, Victor Cruz, Diplo, Damar Hamlin, Joshua, Wisdom Kaye, Queen Latifa, Suni Lee, Evan Mock, Morgan Riddle and Teyana Taylor.