ADAM LIPPES AUTUMN/WINTER 2015-16 READY-TO-WEAR
Since buying back the rights to his name and relaunching his label in 2013, Adam Lippes has specialized in understated luxury. Great cashmere sweaters, clean tailoring, a delicate slipdress for evening, lots of navy, black, and neutrals. It’s a testament to his confidence and a healthy bottom line that he strayed from the script for Fall with a luscious floral photoprint.
Lippes credited the photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia, whose career he’s followed since the early ’90s, as the inspiration. “I worked with the florist Putnam and Putnam, and we used diCorcia’s lighting for the photo, which we cut up to create the print.” It appeared on a zip-front parka and a matching top and skirt, and, more sensationally, on a long, lean pantsuit with a sheer blouse in the same pattern.
A certain exuberance was detectable, too, in a pair of wild and woolly sweaters with piles of fringe at the shoulders and down the arms. Hand-knit in L.A., both the pullover and the cardigan required 10 different gauges of wool. They’re bound to be popular; Lippes should let it all hang loose more often.
But the collection had no shortage of subtler charms: a navy leather hooded trench with a removable quilted lining, tweedy wool-cashmere pants with a killer flare at the hem, suit jackets featuring an elongated cut and a slightly nipped waist. Lippes has his suits made in New York by a men’s tailor, and it shows.