From a critic’s perspective, you know a show did its job when you leave thinking about the clothes and how to descriptively do them justice — not wondering who the guy wearing the face paint that matched his embroidered pants sitting across the aisle was. Phillip Lim’s spring show was just right. The clothes looked clear and awake coming down the runway and not just because they were shown under intense klieg lights. He hit refresh on familiar things — crisp shirts, suiting and tailoring and ruffles — rethinking them without overthinking anything.
“There were no big ideas,” he said backstage. “It was just that need to find something fresh and new for myself.” He found it in disparate references — gypsy flamencos, Ethiopian rugby jerseys and Nineties minimalist suits — that he blended together and mellowed with a very light, modernist hand. The looks were not plain, but there was a clarity and cleanness to them. Gypsy ruffles were streamlined into crisp cotton shirts that looked like a single piece of fabric simply cut with a hole for one’s head, and asymmetrically tiered skirts worn in combinations of solid black and beige. Sporty red and blue rugby stripes were refashioned
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