????在賓夕法尼亞州的艾倫鎮(zhèn)，桑姆?布朗尼算不上是最大的名人。汽車業(yè)標(biāo)志性人物李?艾柯卡才是這里最為家喻戶曉的人物。不過，本周這位紐約時裝設(shè)計(jì)師卻名聲大噪。

????總統(tǒng)就職典禮當(dāng)天早上，身穿方格海軍藍(lán)外套的米歇爾?奧巴馬與總統(tǒng)先生走出加長轎車時，第一夫人的時髦裝扮便引起了人們的討論。而為奧巴馬夫人設(shè)計(jì)服裝的便是筆者的同鄉(xiāng)布朗尼。他的職業(yè)故事肯定能讓許多人受益匪淺。

????布朗尼的第一條成功法則是——做真實(shí)的自己。布朗尼出生在一個崇尚運(yùn)動和成就導(dǎo)向型的天主教家庭，家中共有七個孩子。最初，他名叫湯米?布朗尼，在高中時，他與我的一位好友成為鄰居。布朗尼的父親是當(dāng)?shù)匾患医鹑诠綟inance America的負(fù)責(zé)人。這家公司當(dāng)時隸屬美國銀行（Bank of America），后被克萊斯勒公司（Chrysler）收購。布朗尼的母親是一位律師，但為了撫養(yǎng)孩子，做了20年家庭主婦。46歲的布朗尼說：“我父母經(jīng)常告誡我們：‘不論你想做什么，都要做真實(shí)的自己，并且一定要努力做到最好。’”

????他的兄弟姐妹后來要么成了律師，要么當(dāng)了醫(yī)生。布朗尼的兄弟邁克是紐約市的一位銀行家，另一位兄弟帕特則是賓夕法尼亞州參議院的共和黨議員。桑姆是家里的另類。他回憶稱，在圣母大學(xué)（Notre Dame）學(xué)習(xí)商學(xué)專業(yè)時，“許多人對于未來想做什么都懵懵懂懂，我也是其中的一個。”1988年畢業(yè)后，布朗尼前往洛杉磯，希望成為一名演員，空余時間則收集和改造復(fù)古服裝。他經(jīng)常會穿著自己的作品。很可惜，他的演藝事業(yè)發(fā)展得并不順利。于是他在1997年來到紐約，并成為喬治?阿瑪尼（Giorgio Armani）專賣店的一名銷售員。

????從此，布朗尼進(jìn)入時裝行業(yè)。談到自己在該行業(yè)的發(fā)展，他說：“我之所以進(jìn)入這個行業(yè)，是因?yàn)槲以敢庾龊芏嗍虑椋敢飧鞣N人打交道。對于學(xué)習(xí)如何做事，我一直都認(rèn)真對待。”

????后來，他加入拉夫?勞倫（Ralph Lauren）旗下的摩納哥會所（Club Monaco）。在那里，他學(xué)到了如何創(chuàng)建一個標(biāo)志性的生活方式品牌——他說，也就是“如何打造一個永不褪色的世界。”

????2001年，布朗尼離開摩納哥會館，創(chuàng)立了自己的品牌桑姆?布朗尼。目前，該品牌在美國中部并不出名。他設(shè)計(jì)的服裝僅在全球119家店鋪中銷售，他旗下的公司Brooks Brothers目前約有員工30人，在曼哈頓城區(qū)擁有一家零售店鋪，今年三月將在東京開設(shè)第二家連鎖店。

????不過，桑姆?布朗尼品牌之所以成功，主要是因?yàn)槠浜诵漠a(chǎn)品——男裝，不同于其他設(shè)計(jì)師的作品。他的男裝設(shè)計(jì)以醒目的短褲子為主。這樣的設(shè)計(jì)一方面遭到了嘲笑（有批評家認(rèn)為，那些衣服像是美國一出諧趣劇 Pee Wee Herman中的夸張服飾），可另一方面卻包攬了時裝業(yè)內(nèi)最富盛名的幾項(xiàng)大獎。兩年前，布朗尼開始銷售女裝。他的女裝非常貼身，他說自己的設(shè)計(jì)意圖是使女性看起來“更富有女人味，更嫵媚動人。我不希望女性在穿上我設(shè)計(jì)的服裝后看上去就像穿了件男裝。”

????Thom Browne isn't the most famous person to come out of Allentown, Pa.—that would be automotive industry icon Lee Iacocca. But the New York fashion designer had his dose of fame this week.

????When Michelle Obama and the President stepped out of their limousine on Inauguration Day morning, people were talking about the First Lady's sleek, checkered navy coat. The man who designed Mrs. Obama's outfit is Browne, who hails from my hometown and has a career story that offers lessons that could apply to anyone.

????Be true to yourself—that's one lesson in Browne's success story. One of seven children in an athletic and achievement-oriented Catholic family, Tommy Browne, as he was known back then, grew up next door to my closest friend from high school. Browne's dad headed a local finance company, Finance America, that was owned by Bank of America (BAC) and later by Chrysler. His mom was a lawyer who took 20 years off to raise the kids. "My parents always told us, 'Regardless of what you want to do, you need to be true to yourself—and try to be the best at it,'" says Browne, now 46.

????His siblings grew to be lawyers and doctors—Browne has one brother, Mike, who is a New York banker and another, Pat, who is a Republican member of the Pennsylvania State Senate. Thom was the oddball. At Notre Dame, where he majored in business, "I was one of the many kids who had no clue what I wanted to do," he recalls. After graduating in 1988, Browne moved to Los Angeles, tried to make it as an actor and spent his spare time collecting and restructuring vintage clothes, which he would wear around LA. Not succeeding as an actor, he moved to New York in 1997 and got a job selling in Giorgio Armani's showroom.

????This was Browne's break into fashion. "I am here because I was open to doing a lot of things and meeting a lot of people," he says about his rise through the industry. "And I was serious about learning how to do things."

????When he moved to Club Monaco, owned by Ralph Lauren (RL), he learned from Ralph how to build an iconic lifestyle brand—"how to create a world that will be forever," he says.

????Browne left Club Monaco and started his own label out of his apartment in 2001. Thom Browne, the brand, still isn't well-known in middle America—his clothes are sold in just 119 stores around the world, plus Brooks Brothers, and his company, which employs about 30 people, owns one retail shop in downtown Manhattan and is due to open a second, in Tokyo, in March.

????But Thom Browne, the brand, is iconic because his core product, men's suits, are different from other designers'. Structured with strikingly short pants—as Browne is wearing in the picture on the left—his menswear has attracted both ridicule (the suits are Pee Wee Herman-like, some critics say) and the fashion industry's most prestigious awards.Browne started selling women's apparel two years ago. While the clothes are form-fitting, he says he designs to make women look "feminine and beautiful. I don't want it to look like a women in a man's suit."