Adam Lippes Spring 2018 Ready-To-Wear....Fashionweekly...On Fow24news.com

Adam Lippes has recently hired a distributor in Japan; his business is expanding. The new relationship got him thinking: Though he’s never been to the country, he’s long harbored an interest in its culture, from the furniture to the food. Why not celebrate it in a collection? Why not, indeed.....
The obsessiveness for detail associated with Japan lines up well with Lippes’s own—see the vintage Japanese buttons he’s collected to accessorize his sharp tailoring and shirting, each one delicately hand-painted in enamel.

Of course, Lippes is a maker of American sportswear; he likes denim, he coined the term athluxury for his deluxe sweats, and he knows his way around a slip dress. So his idea here was to take familiar American codes and filter them through a Japanese lens. The process produced a rich collection with a lot of variety. A satin bomber was quilted (a very American technique) with floral Japonica using vintage kimono scraps, while a 1950s-ish party dress—fitted bodice, full skirt—was stitched with smaller versions of those quilted flowers. A reversible coat and culottes in a jacquard that reproduced a Japanese screen scene (quite grand) hung on the rails side by side with silk jersey bodysuits (athletic). Best of all were the East-West denim mash-ups, among them a fitted skirt made from vintage shibori-dyed textiles from Burkina Faso (which apparently adopted the traditional Japanese process) and loose-fitting pants in checked indigo linen. There was also acid-wash denim (an American invention, surely) on a kimono-style jacket. As for finally making that trip to Japan, Lippes has his sights set on April. “For the flowers.”

A word about the sublime white silk dress made from one piece of fabric and knotted at the neck: It would make a lovely wedding dress for a bride on any continent.