Beyond The LIM IT / 3.1 Fall 2013 #Womenswear

This post is long-overdue blogosphere! The incomparable Phillip Lim give us perhaps my favourite Fall Collection this year - littered with blocked and bright leathers, fantastic trenches, glossy pants, and urban knitwear. A Collection that boasts an aesthetic that is so Lim - with the right amount of streamlined chic and the right amount of youthful street style.

I am beyond obsessed with the coats in this Collection. Phillip Lim for Fall is always so architecturally pristine - with an 80's flare for the dramatic; the turquoise and beige overcoats exude a New York flair that is super-chic. Beyond that it has to be the pants and the boot wear - bagged leather, textured and cut with a bold shape. The lines, overlapped textures, and layered pieces are visually brilliant and an urban nod to a little but of 90's as well, if you can see it! The layering of line and colour remind me of a diverse cityscape; and it's held together by a fantastic, stark, and seasonally-sound palette of slate greys, whites, camels, and glossy blacks. A visual symphony of proportion, line, texture, and colour - I wish I could wear it all, especially that turquoise-on-a-teal-edge overcoat. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

I know I post a lot about Phillip Lim, but represent his work is almost a must for me. He is, as I've said before, one of the most impeccable and talented modern designers in the world right now, despite his young age and relatively short career thus far. His taste is consistently and elegantly on-point season after season; and the construction of his pieces, beyond just the tailoring alone, is always a masterful composition of form, colour, and texture. It's as if he is creating incredible buildings that you can both appreciate from a distance and right up-close, in terms of grandeur and presence as well as the finest detailing. I could own every piece in this entire Collection. Bravo!

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3.1 Phillip Lim / Fall 2013 Menswear

One of my favourite modern designers shines even brighter this Season with his slick, textured, and urban Fall 2013 Menswear Collection at Paris Fashion Week.

Epic, which has easily become synonymous with the brilliant Phillip Lim himself, is all I can say about this fantastic presentation. The rich, black, glossy, over-sized knitwear(esque?) pieces are my absolute obsession this Season! I absolutely love the idea of using a traditionally chic medium, like Leather, and using it to create super modern, ultra trendy pieces that are beyond the traditional, classic silhouettes they are normally associated with. The black on black on black is fierce! The blocked pants, both in colour and texture, are so hot it drives me nuts! The entire aesthetic is so high quality but so effortless and urban at the same time; it's almost like Street Style meets High Fashion with en edge of vintage revolt.

Phillip Lim's Fall 2013 Menswear Collection presents a dark, androgynous, and sexy aesthetic that is ultra mod in a youthful light; futuristic Menswear on the streets of an artistic, cosmopolitan hub. Everything about it is totally on-point that I wish I could own a single piece of every outfit presented, from beginning to end. Best!

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3.1 Phillip Lim // #Spring2013

3.1 Phillip Lim has once again re-created Spring. I won't even begin to understand how he does it, season after season; but Mr. Lim, in short, continues to be one of my biggest inspirations in our Modern Fashion Era. Bold prints are one thing, and they've been hot for the last two seasons, but this collection takes the idea much further -  with bold shapes, bright words, t-shirt cut dresses, and parachute jumpers. 

Video by VOGUE at New York Fashion Week

Phillip Lim creates a fabulous and summery tribute to a 90's teenage dream - layered plaid, boyfriend cuts, and floral schoolgirl dresses grounded with bold sandals and flat footwear. I love everything about it. It's a reminder of old school Fashion; when trends were less about feminized forms and fabulous fabric, and more about the essence of Spring itself - light fabrics, ease of wear, youthful energy. The Varisty jackets are probably my favourite part, because they are the most assertive in the aesthetic; and of course those fantastic waist-tied shirts! How much do we miss these! Re-interpretation of a classic? Absolutely not. Bringing it back with style? Yes.

Phillip Lim's Spring 2013 is a celebration of teenage freedom, liberation, and identity. It is a departure of partnering textures, patterns, and shapes for unification and harmony; and instead a plunge into the mish mash closet of a young, creative girl. It's vibrant, unpretentious, and full of newness for a Spring season emerging out of the rich fabric and seriousness of the 2012 cycle; and it couldn't come at a better time. Newness is the word, thank you Phillip Lim.

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3.1 Phillip Lim Spring 2013 Menswear

Phillip Lim continues to be my dream designer. His taste for simplicity and modern form is a style essence  that I greatly associate with. He is consistently the designer who closest embodies what I believe I'd come to create had I a Collection of my own. There's no shortage of brilliance here. Softly-layered coats, over-sized dress shirts, and white on white on beige. Mmm, I could never miss a power pigment wearing any of these; not to mention those fantastic trousers! The Fashion World's obsession with ombré has given way to bold, orthogonal patterns, graphic printing, and textural overlay. Taste, taste, taste; and those bags! I'm swooning Mr. Lim, I'm swooning.

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3.1 Phillip Lim Online Boutique LAUNCH!!!

Thanks to the amazing and the awesome JayStrut, I've recently come to know that one of my favourite design houses, 3.1 Phillip Lim, has just launched their Online Boutique! The shop is available worldwide for international orders on some of Phillip Lim's best designs including, but not limited to, his incredible collection of ombré pieces from his Spring/Summer 2012 Men's Collection.

The boutique features Menswear, Womenswear, as well as an Accessories section that includes Lim's famous collection of carry-alls, totes, and leather satchels. I couldn't be more excited for this! Phillip Lim, as anyone who has been reading my blog should now, is one of my favourite young designers in the industry today. His aesthetic is always modern and crisp with classically tailored elements that are uniquely enhanced with subtle and creative characteristics. His clothes are the epitome of modern style and I am just fawning over everything his Online Boutique is offering for the season!

Also, in celebration of the opening of the 3.1 Phillip Lim Online Boutique, the fashion house is offering a special contest that will gift one lucky, and hopefully obsessed, shopper with a $3000 online spree! Fingers crossed on this end!

Shop today at 3.1 Phillip Lim and be fantastic this Spring!

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3.1 Phillip Lim // Men's Fall 2012

...the most inspired Men's Collection of the entire season, in my opinion. Phillip Lim, of 3.1 Phillip Lim, has been consistently incredible season after season. But perhaps I'm biased, because Lim seems to embrace an aesthetic that is also my opinion of ultimate style; so I've come to recognize his work as the epitome of such. However, regardless of what I think, anyone who has any semblance of knowledge in this industry will agree that Lim's superior forms; in taste, simplicity, and uniqueness, is almost unmatched in the Men's world. 

3.1 Phillip Lim Fall 2012 Men's Runway Show from 3.1PhillipLim on Vimeo.

Razor cut and bold, Phillip Lim continues to make some of the most beautiful outerwear I've ever seen. Crisp whites that anchor sugary accents of turquoise and blue (spring colours!), as well as deep aubergines and scarlets (not unlike the palette of his Women's Collection of the same season) dominate this year. His knitwear is simple in texture and colour, but bolder and more interesting in shape. His leather vests are cut like trenches, but are shoulder-fitted to perfection; while the smallest details, like his elongated, wrap belts and bright red shoes, take the entire aesthetic to a whole new, creative level.

The thing about Lim that amazes me the most is his ability to create. Season after season, from Fall to Spring, from Men's to Women's, Lim manages to spearhead trends with incredible accuracy all while maintaining the ripest expression of his style. He manages to take classic, simple shapes that have worked and will always work, because they are eternal, and just tweak them in the slightest manner, and yet, unexpectedly so. A transparent mesh of mint over an overcoat, a textural vest over a trench, or a graphic pattern into an exaggerated clutch - made for women, adopted for men (I love it!).

Phillip Lim continues to change Men's fashion while maintaining it's powerful integrity. He creates pieces with lastability though they are creative-looking; new but old, in a sense, all the while celebrating his version of what style is. Because of this, and because of his uncanny ability to tie in palettes, shapes, and textures to create a fantastic unity between his Men's and Women's trends, he is unlike any other designer in the industry. Mr. Lim, you had me at ombré <3

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twenty(2)too by Mihai Dan Zarug

Mihai Dan Zarug recently presented his Fall/Winter 2012 Collection as part of the Romanian Designers Show at Berlin Fashion Week. I needed to include him on this page because I think his work is beyond brilliant for so many reasons. The black leather in this collection is astoundingly tailored with such precision and edge; he has created modern, on-season looks that are androgynous, brooding, and very chic. The gorgeous, over-sized, zipped coats paired with collard shirts and cropped pants are a page out of the iconic Phillip Lim; whereas his work with leather as a medium is as brilliant as Versace. My favourite pieces would have to be those incredible leather pants that are so slick they are almost leggings! Shiny and dark, paired with those fantastic studded combat boots that I am obsessed with! This entire collection is a work of totally realized, creative vision and it is executed so brilliantly that I can't relay enough how on-point it is. A fantastic showcase.

t w e n t y (2) t o o A | W 2012 : Victoire: la mort lente de l'esprit from Mihai Dan ZARUG on Vimeo.

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3.1 Phillip Lim, Fall/Winter 2012

Phillip Lim (3.1 Phillip Lim) is an extraordinary tailor. The simplicity of his forms are so powerful because of the finest details; blocks of colour, intersecting lines, layers of fabric. Even the way he creates flowing knitwear is of masterful structure. His latest Prét-a-Porter Collection in New York for the 2012 F/W Season is no exception to the aesthetic.

3.1 Phillip Lim Fall 2012 Women's Runway Show from 3.1PhillipLim on Vimeo.

Monochrome neutrals are back and brilliant. What began the SS'12 Collections of Fashion Week has once again inspired an embrace of the basic. Black, white, slate, camel, navy, forest, even scarlet; have become the new staples of Winter. Over-sized, flowing knits of incredibly crisp white meet powerfully tailored blouses and coats of almost regal stiffness. There is a real amalgamation here of a gone-but-not-forgotten 80's aesthetic with crisper, modern lines. A new embrace of an imagined torso, an exaggerated silhouette, which gives the entire collection an almost youthful whimsy, despite it's contemporary palette. It is effortlessly rich without the need to be, and in true Phillip Lim style, is a complete abandonment of everything overly-textured or overly-accessorized. Simple shapes, simple blocks, interesting lines, brilliant hues; with the slightest metallic just in sight. It is a fantastic expression of a timeless, chic, and urban aesthetic. And those over-sized clutches! Did you see the over-sized clutches?!

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