Thom Browne Takes Homeward to a Birnam Family Farm

Thom Browne opened its Fall 2026 campaign, Homeward, on 1 September 2026 with pictures made in and around Birnam, Scotland, by Robbie Lawrence. The American house called the work a return, but the person holding the camera was already going home. Lawrence has said his grandfather owned a farm in Birnam, and that old photographs of the older man in a suit set the tone for the clothes.

The stills put local people and friends in the season’s knits, coats and tailoring. Lawrence’s father, Ali Lawrence, stands among them. The cloth under those outfits is not a rented backdrop. It is a house tartan Lochcarron of Scotland has made for Browne since the designer’s Fall 2006 menswear collection, 20 years before this shoot.

The Shoot Happened on His Grandfather’s Farm

Lawrence photographed and directed the campaign in meadows and on the hillside around the Perthshire village, with creative production by Fiona Percival, styling by Stuart Williamson and film by Eoin McLoughlin. The house published a Homeward campaign journal entry beside the pictures and put the same credits on its own channel the day the stills landed.

On Instagram, Lawrence described the village in family terms and called the job Chapter 2 of his work with the brand. He thanked Thom Browne for the trust, named the Birnam Hotel, and said a print edition designed with Takuhito Kawashima would follow in September 2026, with words by Colin J. Herd.

Birnam, where my grandad owned a farm. The photos of him in his suit inspired these images.

Robbie Lawrence, photographer and director, campaign caption, 1 September 2026

That is a different brief from a fashion trip that simply wants mist and wool. Lawrence has spent years looking at how Scots and the Scottish diaspora dress up memory, including a long Highland Games project. Putting his father in the frame on the old farm keeps that habit inside a luxury campaign rather than parking the clothes in a pretty field.

A House Tartan Has Lived in Scotland Since 2006

The house’s own grey and navy tartan archive says the signature check first appeared in the Fall 2006 menswear collection and is listed on the Tartan Registry of Scotland. Lochcarron, a tartan house the brand dates to the 1800s, first wove it as a classic wool twill. In a 2022 preview, Browne said he designed and registered the tartan in 2006 and had been using it in smaller ways before he built a whole family of looks around it.

The Scottish Register’s public index records a Browne personal tartan register file under designer Browne, Thom, as STA 6983. The live register does not print a recording date on that line because the design was filed before the statutory register opened on 5 February 2009. The house still dates the cloth to Fall 2006, and Fall 2026 is the first time it has sent a full campaign back to the country that weaves it.

Since that debut the check has moved off the original twill into cashmere, British wool tweeds, French ribbon tweeds, Japanese school-uniform twills, heavy cottons, silk mogadors and nylons. Bags, shoes and the Mr. and Mrs. Thom and Hector lines have worn it too. Homeward does not invent a Scottish chapter. It finally photographs one the mill has been supplying for two decades.

THE CLOTH TRAIL

1. 1892: Lochcarron traces its weaving line to Peter Anderson of Galashiels after a later purchase.
2. 1938: A small factory opens at North Strome, three miles south of Lochcarron village, with four looms.
3. 1949: The first Strome single-width tartan, a Crawford sett, is woven on a Hattersley domestic loom.
4. 2006: Lochcarron moves six miles from Galashiels to Waverley Mill in Selkirk, and the Thom Browne tartan appears in Fall menswear.
5. 2022: The house builds a full family campaign around the grey-navy check, including childrenswear.
6. 1 September 2026: Homeward is released from Birnam, with the collection on sale in stores and online.

The same calendar year that the mill changed towns, Browne put a personal sett into the world. Homeward is the first campaign that treats those two facts as one story rather than a label in a lookbook.

What the Fall 2026 Knitwear Is Made From

Knitwear carries the season. The house uses fine cashmere and merino wool, then runs cable-knit, jacquard, Fair Isle patterning and graphic intarsia through V-neck pullovers, cardigans and oversized patchwork pieces. Some shapes stay close to a classic sweater. Others blow up scale until a pullover reads like outerwear.

Fair Isle and cable stitches are old Scottish methods. Browne’s red, white and navy striping still sits on the surface, so a cardigan can look like school kit even when the stitch is from a mill town. The campaign photographs that mix as weather clothing: sweaters stacked, scarves wound tight, jackets pulled over both.

Chalk-Stripe Flannel Gets a Down Filling

Outerwear is where the season leaves pure knit. The house puts technical down into cloth that usually belongs on a suit, so chalk-stripe flannel, jacket-weight cashmere and windowpane tweed puff out and hold heat. Ski-room details then clip onto those volumes.

WINTER BUILD DETAILS

• Thumbholes: Engineered holes keep sleeves down inside gloves on cropped zip-front vests.
• Gaiters: Rib-knit bands sit at cuffs and hems on football parkas and calf-length jackets.
• Pearl grids: Windowpane check is rebuilt as tight rows of pearls on evening pieces.
• Apron backs: Open-back closures rewrite black-tie dresses, capes and sharp sport coats.

Behind-the-scenes notes from the Fall 2026 collection already described down-filled Chesterfields, football sideline parkas in chalk-stripe flannel, and trompe l’oeil cable embroidery on stripe cloth. Homeward takes those runway ideas off a museum floor in San Francisco and puts them on wet grass. The pearls and apron backs keep evening dress in the same story, so a campaign that starts as farm knitwear still has to account for black tie.

His Father Stands in the Pictures Too

The house said the cast was local residents and friends. Lawrence’s own credits make that specific. He lists Vakare Steputyte, Kirsty Shearer, Arran Young, Arthur Del Beato, Connor Stewart, Alexander Walker and his father Ali Lawrence. Arthur Del Beato is the professional name that campaign round-ups isolated as “the” model. The rest of the slate is mixed on purpose: faces who live near the shoot, friends of the production, and one parent.

HOMEWARD CREW

• Camera and direction: Robbie Lawrence, with Eoin McLoughlin on film.
• Clothes: Stuart Williamson on styling, Fiona Percival on creative production.
• Ground: All Hands Productions, with thanks to the Birnam Hotel.
• Print next: Takuhito Kawashima on the September 2026 publication, words by Colin J. Herd.

On 1 September 2026 the brand posted the stills with a short line that framed the trip as shared work, not a solo designer moment.

by land and by sea, we won’t go it alone…

Thom Browne, Homeward campaign post, 1 September 2026

… homeward …
thom browne fall 2026.

by land and by sea,
we won’t go it alone…

photographed and directed by robbie lawrence.
creative production by fiona percival.
styled by stuart williamson.
filmed by eoin mcloughlin.

available in stores and online:… pic.twitter.com/BWp2ATDobP

— THOM BROWNE. (@ThomBrowne) September 1, 2026

The next day, 2 September 2026, the same account followed with a film it called the journey ahead and a tighter line: “we’ve been called home… it’s time to make our way…” The stills had already shown people dragging a small boat, lying in long grass and sitting against mossy stone. The film copy dropped the travel language and used the word home. That is the house catching up with what Lawrence had already said about the farm.

The Cloth Still Leaves a Selkirk Mill

Lochcarron of Scotland calls itself the world’s leading maker of tartan. Its Lochcarron mill history since 1892 runs from a wartime Highland workshop to a Borders factory floor. Craftspeople dye, warp, weave, mend and tailor on site. The public range is more than 500 authentic Scottish tartans, and the company still sells corporate and fashion setts beside clan cloth.

MILL FACTS IN SELKIRK

• Home mill: Waverley Mill, a former Gardiners tweed site, about 42 miles south of Edinburgh.
• Move year: 2006, six miles south of the old Galashiels headquarters, the same year Browne’s tartan debuted.
• Power: 356 solar panels at the Selkirk site, billed as up to 45 percent of yearly electricity.
• Old kit: A Hattersley warping mill and a Holt soft-winding machine, each about a century old, still in the line.

Weaving at the original Lochcarron village mill stopped around that 2006 move. A heritage shop remains on the North Coast 500 after a 2023 relocation. The Borders weaving mill in Selkirk is where the grey-navy house check actually leaves a loom. Korean retailer Eland bought the company in 2011 and put money into machinery, but the public story the mill tells is still dyehouse, warp, weave and darn in Scotland.

That labour is the quiet half of Homeward. Birnam supplies faces and weather. Selkirk supplies the sett. A campaign that only thanked the village would have skipped the people who keep STA 6983 in production.

He Already Tried This Casting Trick in Japan

Homeward is the second time in a year that Browne has asked Lawrence to dress ordinary streets instead of a studio. In April 2026 the house released The Working Hour, a project around the Thom Browne x ASICS collaboration, with Lawrence as creative director. That series followed people in tailoring through Tokyo and asked small questions about routine, including how many strangers a runner passes in a day.

The Japan team already included Eoin McLoughlin on photography and Takuhito Kawashima on production. Homeward brings two of those names back and swaps the city commute for a Perthshire farm. The method is the same: find a place Lawrence can read, put friends and locals in the clothes, then let the brand’s four-bar stripe and cropped trousers do the identifying work.

The Fall 2026 runway had been a different theatre, a San Francisco day that ended under Rodin figures at the Legion of Honor, with football names on the guest list and down-filled coats on the floor. Homeward is the afterimage of that collection, taken where the photographer’s family actually kept sheep and suits. The house now says the clothes are on sale at thombrowne.com, its own stores and selected wholesale doors. Lawrence’s print, promised for September 2026, is the last unpaid debt of the shoot.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Does a Fashion Tartan Get Onto the Scottish Register?

The Scottish Register of Tartans has been the statutory list since 5 February 2009, under the Scottish Register of Tartans Act 2008, and it also folded in older files from the Scottish Tartans Authority and the Scottish Tartans World Register. New designs can be filed, thread counts requested and amendments logged through that government site, which is why a pre-2009 personal sett such as Browne’s STA 6983 can appear with no public recording date while still sitting in the search index.

Does Lochcarron Still Weave in the Village of Lochcarron?

No. Weaving at the original Wester Ross mill stopped around the 2006 move to Selkirk, and the village site now functions as a heritage shop after a 2023 shift onto the North Coast 500 route. All of the company’s current tartan cloth, including fashion-house work, is described as leaving Waverley Mill in the Borders.

Who Worked on Homeward Beyond the Photographer?

Heather Snowie led hair and makeup, Roxane Dia handled casting, Emily Thorp was production manager and Theo Lewis assisted, under All Hands Productions. Those names sat in Lawrence’s own credit roll beside the better-known styling and film team, and they are the people who actually got locals, a parent and a professional model onto the same farm in the same week.

What Was The Working Hour Before This Campaign?

It was a Spring 2026 zine and film about the Thom Browne x ASICS link, shot as city life in motion in Japan, with styling by Hannes Hetta, words by Durga Chew-Bose and music by Sega Bodega and Lucinda Chua. The house screened and celebrated that project in New York in early April 2026, months before it sent the same photographer to Birnam.

Lawrence still owes the print. Lochcarron still owes the next roll of grey-navy twill. Until that book appears, the campaign’s sharpest picture is already on file: a son photographing his father’s town in a check a Borders mill has been paid to protect since 2006.