Phillip Lim has been making the Fashion Week rounds. Yesterday he was at Peter Do and Prabal Gurung, and Monse and Jason Wu are still on the docket later today and tomorrow. Chalk it up to the collective spirit that emerges from crises—health, retail, and otherwise—after 18 months of pandemic the kind of peer-to-peer support Lim has been demonstrating seems to be trending. The challenges of the lockdowns have precipitated another important change at 3.1. His new collection for spring has more second-generation fabrications than he’s ever used before, fabrics like the wool and recycled polyester blend of an off-the-shoulder rethink of the pantsuit. “Just because we have to be more responsible, it doesn’t have to be boring,” he said at an in-store appointment.
He set about keeping the clothes lively in a variety of ways. The windowpane check that he used for a range of separates had a naive, painterly quality, while bright acid-y colors were lifted from the flowers he grows at home on the North Fork. Garden blooms were a leitmotif, but there was nothing as conventional as a floral pattern. Instead, he let the voluptuousness of petals inform the rounded shape of sleeves on a lawn green cotton dress or the curves on a khaki trench’s storm flap. Knitwear is an important category for Lim, as it is for so many labels now. His knits are easy wearing, but they too come with unexpected details. Camisole styles can be worn front to back or back to front, ribbed sweaters have peekaboo cut-outs, and the hems of sweaters unbutton for a relaxed but body-conscious silhouette. Without the constraints of a show to worry about, Lim was able to spend his time and energy this season finessing those kinds of thoughtful details. They’re what will separate his clothes from others in the contemporary field.
