Runway Ready

Thomas Bliven has had to sign NDAs with many of his clients, which explains, in part, why he is not on Instagram. But it’s also because he’s been busy—really busy.

For the past two decades, Bliven has made one-of-a-kind metal accessories worn by runway models and celebrities at New York Fashion Week (NYFW), the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Met Gala. He’s made oversized rocker-chic brooches that look like spider webs, minimalist cuff bracelets with reliefs shaped like lips, and chunky circular earrings with details made of horn—basically anything his fashion-designer clients can imagine.

Bliven creates these pieces by hand and by himself at his studio in New York’s Long Island City, a warehouse-like space packed to the rafters with tools. Some of the labels who have him on speed dial are Marc Jacobs, Alexander Wang, Gabriela Hearst, The Row, Edun, Helmut Lang, Calvin Klein, Narciso Rodriguez, and Derek Lam. And yet he’s largely unknown to the outside world. “I sort of missed the boat on social media,” he says. “It’s a tricky thing, but I’m trying to come up with an idea of how to launch that.”

Bliven, who teases that his age is “a secret,” has an endearing mix of self-confidence and sheepishness. He speaks with breakneck speed about his work, yet sometimes hesitates or slows down when speaking about his life, and the professed love of his life, a 14-year-old Weimaraner named Buddy. “I have great pictures of him—maybe he could be my first image on Instagram,” he says, turning the camera around to show Buddy, who is near his workspace, lying on a cushion as we chat via FaceTime.

Working with Koons taught him a lot about process and getting a piece from image to reality. But lost-wax casting is just one of the ways Bliven knows how to sculpt. He’s also adept at both additive and subtractive processes, and can rattle off the properties of every known metal.

These skills have since made him a hot commodity in the fashion world, a planet he landed on by accident. He was having lunch in Chelsea one day in the early aughts, near Koons’s studio, and someone asked him what he did for a living. Bliven explained his métier. Within minutes, that person commissioned a piece of hardware for a handbag. “I was making six-foot sculptures, so making a piece that’s two inches seemed like no problem at all,” says Bliven. “He gave me the drawing and I turned it around in a few days. It was for Derek Lam.”

One piece of hardware led to another. A few years later, Bliven started working steadily for Calvin Klein under creative director Francisco Costa. Their collaboration lasted almost 10 years. Among many pieces, he made the boning used to hold up Gwyneth Paltrow’s geometrically shaped neckline at the Oscars in 2011, and a series of metal-rimmed cutout details inset with geodes, sewn into a handful of dresses that walked the Fall 2016 runway at NYFW. Like most of Bliven’s handiworks, these were one-offs, made using stones that Costa himself had brought back from his native Brazil.

“I don’t know anybody who does the work he does,” Costa says. “He has the sensibility to know what’s needed and often comes up with solutions.”

Bliven established his first studio in Astoria, Queens, while working with Calvin Klein, and by the time Costa parted ways with the label in 2016, Bliven was taking commissions from multiple designers. He’s perennially on deadline, getting pieces ready for a photo shoot (Taylor Swift on the cover of Vogue), a red carpet (Brie Larson’s armor-like halter dress, also by Calvin Klein, at the Golden Globes), or a fashion show (tentacle-shaped headpieces for Khaite’s spring collection). “There are a lot of last-minute requests during runway season, and things get chaotic,” he says. “I’ve always lived and worked in the same space, and the great thing is I can work anytime, all the time.”

Bliven’s current setup in Long Island City, a 2,500-square-foot former factory with whitewashed brick walls, is “a great space” for him. There’s a showroom in the front, an open kitchen and living area in the center, and a workshop in the back. Hundreds of prototypes and tools—flex shafts, burrs, hammers, files, pliers—surround his chair, almost all placed at arms-length (“A jeweler’s bench is like a cockpit to a pilot,” he quips).