Adam Lippes Ready-To-Wear Fall 2020

Adam Lippes’ own characterization aside, the fashion quotient of what he calls his “small-f” approach to fashion isn’t so small. His fall collection was like the blue-sky Saturday morning on which he showed — serene in mood, bold in clarity and beautiful to boot. Lippes showed in Veronika, the new restaurant in the Fotografiska photography centre on Park Avenue South, which, like his clothes, projects a non-minimal take on sophisticated chic. Guests settled in to banquettes to enjoy a breakfast of quiche, fresh fruit and pastries. Lippes kept the soundtrack calm and the preshow mood conducive to conversation as if replicating the kind of non-show setting in which women might reasonably wear his clothes.

For fall, he was inspired by Umberto Pasti’s Rohuna garden in Morocco, a theme he worked lightly in variations of a dark-ground floral print, the blooms small-ish on a silk dress and blown up on a straight, collarless coat and one of several short, boxy jackets that he paired with pleated trousers—his customer loves a great pant. He knows because he spends a lot of time with her during store visits. She also favours sensual clothes with an aura of propriety, delivered here in fluid dresses and pleated skirts-and-shirt pairings cut in controlled volumes for ease of movement. Lippes added flourish with deft skill, in ruffles on yokes and cuffs, romantic detachable collars and an opening at the throat of a sumptuous grey ribbed-cashmere dress, the perfect frame for the bow of a soft white blouse. Yet much of the allure of these clothes is the way they feel to the wearer; the fabrics are sumptuous and the finishings, exquisite.

There’s a great deal of conversation around the current state of New York fashion — what is it, what does it stand for, where is it going. Lippes provides one example, one direction that makes sense: a source for the alluring, interesting clothes that make sense for women who love fashion in pragmatic context — for their real everyday lives.