NYFW Monday: Phillip Lim 3.1, Ulla Johnson, Jason Wu, and Bach Mai

Gorgeous weather-accented NYFW shows ranging from an anniversary collection, an ode to a famous artist, a spotlight on collaboration between mediums, and a most improved collection show.

Wiping back tears of joy twenty years in the making, Phillip Lim spoke to FashionNetwork.com backstage post-show on Sunday about regaining the raison d’etre in a world driven by social media.

“This show is dedicated to joy. I wanted clothes to feel fun again, personal, tactile. Fashion is such a visual space now that you don’t feel it anymore. It’s just for the ‘Gram, the camera; it’s not for your heart anymore. Those 51 exits were characters I know, women who inspired me, and things I love: clothes becoming fashion. This is why I got into this industry: to find joy, not just to make clothes look a certain way that’s not personal,” he said.

Indeed, the show was a joy to watch. While he isn’t always associated as a hybrid designer, Lim’s unique pairing of seemingly opposite concepts has been a hallmark of his designs since he began two decades ago. Like many brands, things got a little quiet during the pandemic, but Lim has emerged in the last three seasons as a not-to-miss collection during NYFW (which, to many, is scraping the barrel for truly inspiring shows).

With a range of models and music that harkened back at least twenty years, Lim staged his runway in a ‘shell’ building for a dose of New York grit but lined the top of the runway in a modern Plexiglas panel as a juxtaposition to the space. It symbolized the clothes that would emerge from there.

“The collection is something for all of us, open and ready to feel it. It’s the arc of my life, from California to New York. It has all the signatures and insignias that I love. They were mixed, but I pushed it forward,” he said, then asked, “Did you see the rosettes from 2007? I referenced all these elements and thought ‘let’s own this’ from T-shirts to gowns to textiles.”

If one word was used to describe the show, it might be textiles or texture. The show opened with oversized lace styles in black and white, carnelian blue, and neon yellow. In Lim’s hands, thanks to their immense proportions, they looked edgy, not precious, as voluminous sleeve tunics were worn over pants or handkerchief hem dresses with a large ribbon flowing down the back.

Lim also leaned into a fringy, furry fabric that swished and showed up on everything from an open-panel mini-skirt to a yellow long-sleeve crew neck top worn with an open thigh neon yellow lace short, an upscale and edgy take on shorts and T or three-piece suit subbing a bra top for a vest.

One motif used extremely long crystal strands as a fabric, stunning as a dress or a plunging V-neck halter slash belt combo. Ubiquitous denim, fleece, and cotton T-shirts were proposed in shocking green jeans with side zipper legs or an acid-washed oversized tunic; camo-patched sweatpants and T-shirts spliced with ruched and corded chiffons bore lyrics from the song ‘Don’t Cry Tonight’ by eighties synth-pop band Savage.

Classic men’s style silks were paired with a beaded mesh textile as another hanky-inspired hemline (it also appeared in a metal version as a sheer vented tunic top or crest-accented with crystal bows).

As the models, which included Jessica Stam, who had seemingly returned to the runways, remerged, The Cranberries’ Dream’ played, though it was Mandarin singer Faye Wong’s version. Like the clothes, it merges the familiarity from two very different places for a beautiful effect.

Jackson Pollock is almost a household word in terms of American artists. Not so much his spouse, Lee Krasner, who stood equally in-depth and talent as a female artist associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. Her legacy of being a Hans Hoffman school painter, an artist of the WPA movement, and part of the New York school with contemporaries such as Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. Now, her art can be associated with New York fashion as designer Ulla Johnson became the first creative to access and utilize her work. Johnson spoke to the press post-show on the collaboration that allowed the designer access to three of Krasner’s works: Palingenesis, Portrait in Green, and Comet.

“These were painted when Lee was using fiery colors, and she spoke about wanting her work to breathe and live, which spoke to me. I have been thinking about her during this process, how we animated the set [with a cascade of multiple panels depicting the works], and with the women. We think about the women who brought these clothes to life, so they are not just garments. Still, it becomes part of the person,” she told reporters, alluding to the similarities she feels to Krasner as a New Yorker, first-generation American, and colorist inspired by nature and bold strokes of color.

According to Johnson, the prints informed the whole collection, which leaned more towards some of her cut-and-sew and tailored tendencies. “It was much more restrained with the prints in general, just focusing on her work and playing with beautiful solids. Lee spoke about this idea of being a feminine painter; was she or not? She was being put into a box. We played with this idea of diaphanous and something very sturdy,” she explained. Thus, while a boho-flowing pattern dress is always a part of Johnson’s work, she leaned into structure and solid fabrics.

“Like me, a working woman wanted to look powerful, so she wanted to communicate that with a lot of utility and fantasy. Strict tailoring but softened with these chiffons, sequins, and hand embroidery for a new way of dressing,” she said. As another reference for the sequins on structured vests, car coats, and capes, think Miu Miu.

Johnson is on to something with her menswear, which she introduced last season as a teaser, especially as she just sized women’s silhouettes and shapes to the male figure. The look, heavy on all sorts of long tunics over pants, offered something fresh to the men’s market, especially for its cultural appeal for the EMEA market.

“This false binary between menswear and women’s wear is quite outdated. We have men in our orbit who love color, print, and silhouettes different from what is typically presented,’ she said. I bet Lee Krasner could relate to that.

The weather gods were kind to Jason Wu, who chose to show outside at Hudson Yards on the plaza branded the garden. It’s the space where the Vessel rests and tragedy befell human life and the structure. It was a positive way to create more memories for the Thomas Heatherwick-designed large-scale art piece. Besides, Wu told reporters post-show that as the plaza is a place for people to watch and gather, why not show the lucky onlookers what goes into creating a fashion show?

But rather than rest on the spot natural architectural interest, Wu commissioned another set of creatives: designers and technologist at Aeolab and Art Center College of Design Elise Co and artist Ben Borden to erect a 21-foot-high steel cut design mounted on scaffolding in front of the Vessel which served as an archway for models to walk under.

That partnership accentuated the central collaboration for the season with Chinese artist Yang-Tze Tong, who, at 82, will be the first Asian artist to create works for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall this November. Known for exploring traditional Chinese calligraphy, Tong worked with Wu to make some of the intricate textiles shown on the runway. Thus, chiffons were printed with large swishing black brush strokes or recreated tone-on-tone in cream using a fringy, feathery embroidery treatment to mimic Tong’s work.

“Fashion is more than clothes. The world is a crazy place, and fashion is a medium to channel what is happening. Many don’t consider this as much as they should, but it is. This show is a collaboration between many creatives; I flew to Taiwan for 24 hours just to get Yang-Tze’s permission,” he told FashionNetwork.com.

Wu softened the madness with wispy layered chiffon pieces, pleat technique overdyed styles that blew in the wind, and intelligent warm weather outerwear to shield you from the elements and other various surrounding madness. He also showed his clothes for men, another designer suggesting whoever looks good in them should wear them, retail gender norms be damned.

The work with Tong leaned into Wu’s heritage, but the designer said he had trod lightly on the subject.

“I did a Chinese-inspired collection ten years ago, and it was terrible. This time, I was redeemed. Back then, I was young; it was a way of representing my heritage and experiences living globally and how it all melts together. It’s about real estate, art, fashion, pop culture, and wind,” he suggested, pointing to the surroundings.

Collaboration is also about leaning into community. Right now, the New York fashion community is leaning into this issue.

“American fashion means we are strong. I am not going anywhere. I have been here 16 years and never missed a show, not even during Covid. I think fewer of us now, so let’s support each other. We need to be a community and find a way of coming together. I think there needed to be, and now there is,” he concluded.

For the most improved show for the Spring 2025 collections, the award should go to Bach Mai. After a dicey showing last season that was in part perhaps fallout from the designer’s father passing in 2023, Mai found his footing again with a collection that wiped the slate clean and returned to his penchant for sold color mixing, especially leaning into ombre effects. Showing at the Chelsea Factory, most popular with Donna Karan and DKNY shows in the past, and erecting a multi-level platform centerpiece at which the models gathered salon-style after the final walk, inspired by Cecil Beaton’s ‘Charles James Gowns’ image, also added to the show’s elevation.

In a release, the designer cited his father’s words regarding an earlier collection where his dad asked, “Where is all the color?”

Perhaps it was the second collection shown in New York, in a dimly lit cavernous room with a goth edge because his first showing at The Stage at the Times Center was all color.

“This led me to the impetus for this collection. I would use my work to claw myself out of this darkness and find the invincible summer within. In this process, I reconnected with my passion for my craft and the references that ignited my love for fashion. I also found hope at a time when I felt hope was almost lost, not unlike the seismic shift in hopefulness brought on by recent political developments. This energized and emboldened me to be unapologetic in creating a collection dedicated to shape and color,” he said in a release.

In this outing, the designer stripped back all moody, dark, shredded hemline goth garb for Fall 2024 to show a mainly jewel-tone collection that paired down and crisp. He cited architect Luis Barragán, Japanese art form Bijin-Ga, and James Turrell’s modernism as beacons for the collection. The result was fun flounce skirt cocktail dresses mainly taking cues from crinolines, vibrant combos of color on evening pant proposals, and the pink to red to purple ombre effect on skirts and hemlines, incredibly punchy when worn with a soft aqua fitted bodice shirt jacket.The looks were glammed up with diamond jewelry provided by Leviev. One of the show’s playlists featured, ‘Fly Like An Eagle‘ by the Steve Miller Band, whose lyrics “time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future’ signaled that Mai is ready to move forward.