Philip Lim Celebrates his 10th Anniversary
The fashion industry was a very different place ten years ago, when 3.1 Phillip Lim debuted its first collection. For one thing, there was no 3.1 Phillip Lim—which may seem like a master-of-obvious fact to point out, except that Phillip Lim’s fashion-forward, accessibly priced young brand broke new ground in the marketplace. Après Lim, le déluge. Many labels have flooded into the category we now call “contemporary” in the past decade, but Lim was among the first designers to stake out the territory and define it for everyone else. Lim himself has taken the past year to reflect on the last ten and consider—especially in light of the changes around him—where his brand stands now. “People were saying, ‘Oh, you should do this, you should do that, you should have rocket ships or something,’ ” Lim says, when asked how he was planning to mark the occasion of his anniversary this season. “But I really felt like, after all the thinking back and thinking forward that I’d been doing, that I just wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate the present. You know—stop and smell the flowers.” With that in mind, Lim has collaborated with legendary architect and artist Maya Lin for a special anniversary show, one he says riffs on that “smelling the flowers” theme—though attendees, and folks viewing the live-stream, will have to wait until showtime to see how. In the meantime, Lim spoke to us about ten years of making “contemporary,” well, contemporary.
Ten years! Congrats. I know you’ve spent a lot of time this past year thinking about what 3.1 Phillip Lim is—what it stands for, what constitutes its essential vocabulary. Does the brand mean something different to you now than it did when you launched?
Actually, all my thinking has brought me back to the beginning. I’ve been asking myself, “What do I do?” And the answer is, “I do what I love.” And I love making clothes. I want to make clothes I desire and clothes that make my customer feel beautiful and confident. It’s really simple. I think it’s easy for designers to throw words around, like, we’re about luxury or we’re about modernity or whatever, but at the end of the day that’s just marketing. You have to back those words up with product. So this past year has been about unlearning the unnecessary, and bringing it back to the product. If you focus on the product, that will move you forward.
Lim with models in the all-white Spring 2007 collection he calls a career highlight
Photographed by Fredericke Helwig, Vogue, November 2006
How did you wind up working with Maya Lin on the upcoming show?
I knew I wanted to mark this moment by just expressing that I was grateful. Make a gesture of giving back. So I had that in mind, in a general way, when my partner found herself at a dinner with Maya Lin. I’d actually met her years earlier, and of course I was a huge fan of her work—things like the Wavefield at Storm King and the war memorial in D.C. Her whole practice is to use elements of the everyday to create consciousness, which is very in tune with how I’ve been feeling lately, trying to be more conscious about what I do. Anyway, so the conversation started at this dinner, and a few days later, we found ourselves at Maya’s studio. Her attitude, at first, was that she didn’t do fashion. She was going to recommend someone else for us to work with. But then we kept talking, and I guess something connected, and she said, “Can I give you some sketches?”
When you say, “If you focus on the product, that will move you forward,” what do you mean by that?
Okay, so a good example would be the knits in my last Resort collection. At this volume, it’s very easy for a brand to just make, like, basic cardigans or whatever. All kinds of basic things—nice things, but there’s not much thought behind it. You just slap a tag on and call it a day. But I wanted to take a step back and really consider—what is a sweater? What can a sweater be? What can we produce with this yarn? Or, in the collection from Fall, the one in stores now, we went through a similar process thinking through the flight jacket. And so we wound up with shrunken bombers, with bibs, with elongated jacket silhouettes . . . That’s what a designer does: takes a hard look at something familiar, questions it, and proposes something new.
The industry has changed in many ways in the past ten years, but you had a formative influence on one major development: the establishment of the “contemporary” category. I wonder, how has it affected your process, as all these competing brands have flooded your territory?
It’s harder now than it was at the beginning. When we launched, we really just wanted to go against the idea that top-tier luxury had a monopoly on well-made, modern-looking clothes. We carved out that niche, and now a lot of other people are competing in that niche. And we’re still a self-funded, independent company, so of course it’s not easy to compete with everyone all at once. But I’ve just felt like, why should you leave the space you helped start? No. You stay on your turf. You show people how to do this. The way you compete is to keep creating beautiful things that are made with thought, attention, tenderness. And then, as a final consideration, you ask—is this affordable? Because it’s not just about the price tag. We compete by believing in what we produce.
What are some of the highlights, for you, looking back on the past ten years?
Well, one of the big ones—obviously—was being named a runner-up in the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. And, actually, I came to appreciate being the runner-up, as opposed to the winner, because that taught me, you know, there are things in this industry you can control and things you can’t, and so all you can do is stay true to yourself and focus on the stuff that’s in your control. Plus, it was through the Fashion Fund that I met a mentor, Howard Socol, who’s still a mentor to me today.
Another highlight—one I think some people will find surprising—is my Spring 2007 collection. It’s just so naive. All white—like, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that not everyone looks good in white, not everyone wants to wear it. I find the naïveté of that collection endearing. I just did what I felt like doing.
And then, our new campaign is really a highlight for me. We shot it with Viviane Sassen, whose work I love. And the whole approach—being really guerrilla about how we captured the images—it really drove home that idea that there’s so much beauty and so much style and, you know, so much joy to be found in the ordinary. That idea again—just seeing what’s around you.
3.1 Phillip Lim looks from Fall 2015,
Fall 2013, and Fall 2010
From left: Photo: Marcus Tondo / Indigitalimages.com; Photo:Gianni Pucci/InDigitalteam I Gorunway; Photo: Marcio Madeira / FirstView.com
And what do you foresee for 3.1 Phillip Lim in the next ten years?
I want to develop scent, for sure. I love scent and I wear it every day. A big theme for me is that in the next ten years, I don’t just want to be a part of this industry—I want to play a part in it, I want to challenge the rules and figure out ways we can all be more conscious about what we produce. That’s a big goal. Figuring out how to be smarter about technology—that’s another one. The main thing, though, is I just want to continue this work I’ve been doing, to be present, and discover the little ecstasies in the everyday.
The show with Maya Lin aside, are you planning any celebrations?
I’m taking a day off. My birthday is September 1, and in ten years I’ve never had the day off. So I’m doing that. I bought myself tickets to the quarterfinals of the US Open, and I’m going. Just that, it’s like—wow.
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