New York Fashion Week: Tory Burch and Phillip Lim have ‘everything a girl needs’

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‘Everything a girl needs.’ That’s what I overheard a guest saying about the Tory Burch presentation, but it could just as well have described Phillip Lim’s collection. Both designers are champions of the new bridge market that is a bright spot at retail, offering high style at not-so-high prices (mostly less than $1,000).

Burch, who is known for her 1970s WASP look, said her spring line was about ‘effortless dressing,’ and ‘Alexander Calder meets William Eggleston.’

That translated into lots of versatile pieces for would-be socialites, including glove leather cargo pants; a tie-dye leather miniskirt; a navy striped knit blazer; a sand, sun-yellow and gold-hued loose knit sweater; beaded envelope clutches and natural suede, side-buckled moccasin booties.

You could almost hear the cash register going ka-ching as Phillip Lim’s models walked down the runway. His show may not have been the week’s most exciting, but it ticked off the trends all right, from the color red (a saucy lipstick-red mackintosh) to featherweight leather (a draped-front, caramel leather skirt), to feminine frills (on a natural-colored jacket with a ruffled body, cutaway back and ribbon closures) to the new pants (‘guru’ pants with a fold-over knit waist, worn with a double-breasted shirt jacket as a new kind of suit).
Lim’s takes on multimedia, collage dresses were nicely done, too, with sculptural accordion pleating, draped lace and sequin panels.

-- Booth Moore

Photos: Tory Burch spring-summer 2010 runway

Photos: 3.1 Phillip Lim spring-summer 2010 runway

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