A Mercer Street store! A children's line! Eyewear! Perhaps it's all the endless goings-on in the house of Phillip Lim that were making him feel a bit escapist. "I wanted to make clothes that were ready for travel," he said before the show. Amelia Earhart was on his mind.
The voyage began with his favorite model, Irina Lazareanu, in a khaki coat with epaulets (an easy best seller) over the more directional ensemble of a white shirt with an oversize tie and harem pants. From there the audience was transported in many stylistic directions, from sexy minis with exposed zips to a backless raffia cocktail dress, from a gray cashmere bandeau twinset to a Michael Jackson red leather jacket. Some looks, like a safari jacket over a pleated chiffon dress, made obvious statements about the improvisational nature of dressing on the go.
Lim's eveningwear sells like hotcakes, and he expanded on the theme with a series of dresses fashioned in the style of Madame Grès, the Parisian mistress of pleats and draping. These were a sure thing for after eight, but it would have been nice to see a newer idea.
Piece by piece, Spring offered the legions of Lim fans more of what they adore. But, taken as a whole, the message wasn't as coherent as Fall's—and awkward staging didn't help. After their loop on the sloped circular runway, the models placed themselves on a mushroom cluster of round platforms at its center. This caused a bit of confusion among the models and frustration among the photographers. Standing there, Lim's amassed crew looked like a crowd of chic strangers in an airport.
