Phillip Lim has kept a low profile at New York Fashion Week since the pandemic. When you saw him, it was in the front row at his friends’ shows; he’s revealed his own collections via one-on-one appointments in his Great Jones Street store. This season he’s breaking the pattern. Tonight, he’s gathering folks at a pop-up gallery on the Lower East Side for an exhibition of the work of the Japanese photographer Jiro Konami, who takes impressionistic pictures of New York City. Lim gave Konami five pieces from his fall collection and told him to hit the streets. He’ll see the results for the first time when he shows up at his party this evening, but the idea was to channel the impromptu synchronicity that the city is famous for.
That’s what he got up to in this collection, as well. A pair of dresses patched from clashing florals and trimmed with Chinatown shopping bag checks are illustrative: The separate parts seem unlikely to mesh, but together they’re surprisingly pleasing. He said he’s been looking at the book Chinatown Pretty, which celebrates the street style of senior citizens across six North American Chinatowns. There’s also an Instagram account, and a scroll-through reveals poh pohs (grandmas) in all manner of offhand, everyday splendor.
Among the other mashups here are hoodies made from washed denim, a schoolgirl pinafore with a leather bodice, and puffers with peacoat collars. Lim’s knack for cool outerwear comes across in an oversize washed denim chore jacket and a shrunken leather biker jacket—bikers are trending in these early days of fashion month. There are schoolboy blazers in the mix, too, and he’s developed a 3.1 Phillip Lim crest for the front pockets, the embroidery of which reads: “The City that Never Sleeps.” Lim isn’t likely to get much shut-eye tonight. But gallery hoppers still might spot him over the weekend. The exhibition, at 199 Chrystie Street, is open to the public.
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