Amber Anderson by Adriano Russo / Vanity Fair Italia May 2013
3.1 Phillip Lim f/w 2013
Shortly before the start of the 3.1 Phillip Lim show today, a man came out and splashed some kind of fluid around the catwalk. It seemed plausible—if only for a moment—that the fluid was kerosene and that the man was going to light the Lim runway on fire. Not only would an inferno have been dangerous and thrilling, but it would have been fitting, too: This was a collection with a scorched-earth attitude. Lim’s inspiration this season was bikers, or more specifically and rather weirdly, girlfriends of bikers, and he abstracted that theme into a general air of menace. There were lots of literal references to biker aesthetics here—a preponderance of leather, patch-covered denim, and moto jackets, vests, sweatshirts, and even dresses. The most interesting pieces in this show saw Lim interpreting his theme more liberally and conjuring a kind of shrugged-on, to-hell-with-it errant-ness.
- Maya Singer
