Thom Browne and Andrew Bolton to share National Arts Club fashion honour

Thom Browne, the American designer known for cropped grey suits, and Andrew Bolton, the curator behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art's major fashion exhibitions, will share the National Arts Club's Medal of Honor in Fashion.

The joint award was reported by WWD. The ceremony is set for Oct. 16 at 6 p.m. at Tilden Mansion, 15 Gramercy Park South in New York City. The National Arts Club, the New York private members club for the arts, gives the medal each year for contribution to fashion.

Browne is chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the United States industry body for designers. He launched his own label in 2001. It is now sold in 40 countries and is part of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, the Italian luxury group. He has won three CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year awards.

Bolton is curator in charge of The Costume Institute, the fashion department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He organised “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” and “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” two of the museum’s most visited fashion shows. He received the CFDA Founder’s Award in 2022 and was awarded an OBE, the British honour for service to the arts, in 2023.

Speakers at the Oct. 16 ceremony will include artist Amy Sherald, performer Queen Latifah, and architects Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich. Past recipients of the fashion medal include Donna Karan, Anna Sui, Narciso Rodriguez, Iris Apfel and Norma Kamali.

What makes this stand out is the pairing. One honouree makes the clothes. The other decides how they are remembered in a museum.