Phillip Lim is scheduled to return to the runway in September. While he’s accustomed to four years of low-key fashion weeks, in which he’s shown informally, he’s eager to get involved again. In preparation, he called the resort collection a “palate cleanser,” but it’s based on the 3.1 brand’s foundational concept—uniforms.
Not a school uniform or sportswear, but an art gallerist uniform. Real-life clothing with a high-fashion flair is Lim’s specialty. Shopping at his store on Great Jones Street is satisfying because his pieces have the look of today but without the extra zeros on the price tags you find in higher-end brands.
He actually wears art gallerists and he finds a few things: how they might modify an old denim jacket a few sizes up, how they pull it on over a pair of ankle-length pants A midi skirt, their penchant for vintage T-shirts – blouses. All of these ideas come into play here. His oversized denim jackets cinched at the back to create a loose, blouson look, and he added a lace band to his T-shirts, declaring “there’s only one New York.” At the show’s opening, perhaps, his go-to bubble The puff-sleeved midi dress got a new take—his fitted model declared the PMA silhouette “nice, modern, and fitting—and, yes, he styled it with long flared trousers.
But more than the uniform, New York has been a theme for Lim, and it has been for the past few seasons. A good example of his fondness for the place is a series of pieces in washed black silk, everywhere Decals, with photo cutouts of waxy anthurium flowers, were sold all over the city in bodegas.
