Phillip Lim was back on the runway in September for the first time in four years, with a collection that blended polish and utility in a way that seems particularly of New York. Denim in anything-but-your-average shapes, boxy men’s button-downs and slips, leggings with fold-over waistbands topped by midriff-baring shirts—running a business out of Great Jones Street, Lim has a good sense for the special-but-not-precious kind of clothes that work here. We’re not running around in stilettos, even if TV shows would have non-New Yorkers believe it.
Pre-fall picks up where that show left off. It’s a collection of urban fundamentals: essentials, but not basic. One of his suits, in a nubby linen-wool blend, comes with shorts, not trousers; another, in a technical stretch viscose, features a short sleeved, safari-backed jacket. There are two jean jackets in the lookbook; one is collarless, the other is spliced with a sharp-cut blazer. And the dresses that look like two-piece sweater and slip sets are in fact easy-on one-and-dones.
“Pre-fall, for me, it’s like back-to-school,” he said at a preview in his store. Looking for wardrobe updates, his customers might be attracted to a car coat with curved seaming that gives it a generous shape; it registers high on the utility scale. A midi-dress in a patchwork of floral prints reads more whimsical, but it’s hardly an on-a-whim kind of thing; it would come in especially handy on the hottest days of the summer. The shoe of the season is an asymmetric toe ballerina with a little block heel, fun but also functional.