Let other New York City fashion designers toast the 10th anniversary of their brand by getting down and dirty. Phillip Lim celebrated a decade of 3.1 with plain old dirt. Mounds of the stuff were installed all around Lim’s catwalk this afternoon, in an arrangement designed by architect Maya Lin. As Lim revealed after the show, the dirt was in fact compost that he and his team had been making from their own food waste and storing up for months. “I was thinking,” he said, “about where things start. They start from a seed. They start from dirt.” The compost mounds on the runway, which would be de-installed post-show and delivered to local parks, thus symbolized both beginnings and rebirth.
It was a fitting theme for this show, which found Lim reprising various signatures but arranging them in a way that felt new. This collection boasted a directness that some of Lim’s recent outings have lacked—his modus operandi here was, put simply, to take sporty and/or mannish looks and infuse them with a sense of romance. That strategy was apparent in the most instantly appealing of the looks he showed today, pinstriped pieces billowing with ruffles or collaged with floral prints. But it was evidenced, as well, in the likewise ruffled scuba tops, and the bomber jackets done in organza, satin, or silk.
This show could have been a touch more concise. Lim had several strong ideas going here, like the fluid paper-bag waist trousers and the taut sweaters and dresses in burlap nylon that seemed to degrade into floral metallic jacquard, and he elevated the collection as a whole by focusing on its sense of hand, whether in the luxe green gazar used in a matching bandeau and high-slit skirt, or the delicate floral appliqué embellishing otherwise straightforward tops. But there was some clutter, too. The cargo pants and adapted biker jackets could have stayed in the showroom, for instance. Those pieces weren’t bad; they just diluted the poetry of the show as a whole. Lim has made it this far—there will be plenty of time to show biker jackets in the 10 years ahead.
