only a small window of opportunity to sell through before [an item] goes on sale.”
An unofficial part of Zhou’s job description is to care for what Lim calls the “ 3. 1 fam-
ily,” including offering yoga lessons for the staff at her West Village townhouse and
tending to the ego of its patriarch. Zhou missed the Paris presentation—the first time
she’d ever been absent from a 3. 1 Phillip Lim show—because she had to travel to Ningbo
for her grandmother’s funeral. An hour before the presentation, Lim is visibly jittery. To
no one in particular, he says, “It’s too bad Wen’s not here.” Another time, he says to me,
“I would never do this alone. Hell to the no. There’s a lot of pressure. Wen shields me from
a lot of it.” Later, he tells me, “I think I need nurturing. I think a part of me is damaged.”
six da Ys after tHe paris sHow, I meet Lim at his New York showroom, a Garment
District space with white walls and whiter tables. A few floors downstairs is his studio
and atelier, a wonderfully undone space with bolts of fabric and spools of thread
sprouting from every corner and assistants rushing here and there, one on a search
for black fringe, another hunting down a wayward sample. Lim’s office, at the center
of the fracas, looks like a small, well-used library. Floor-to-ceiling shelves spill with
books of all varieties—from Patti Smith’s Just Kids to monographs on Isamu Noguchi
and Richard Serra. On his desk is a stack of his drawings.
He greets me with a hug, and eventually our conversation meanders to his seven
tattoos. He pulls up his left sleeve and shows the one on the inside of his forearm: a
flock of birds in midflight. “I marked that on myself to know that freedom is always
my priority and a priority I should give to everyone else,” he says. “Being from this
Asian cultural background, it’s about keeping everything to yourself. But I see everyone
else expounding and sharing, so it’s negotiation and navigation for me. It’s going to
be a lifelong process. My own personal traits are being aloof and introverted, and I’m
in an industry that probes me and requires a team to work with.”
But what does freedom mean in an industry governed by other people’s judgments—
not only the consumers’ but also the critics’? That has been particularly tough as he
has expanded beyond the womenswear that won him his reputation. “I see the men’s
line as an extension of Phillip’s personal style, which is very distinct and cool without
being too off-putting,” says Eugene Tong, senior style editor of Details. “However, I feel
that certain pieces or looks can only work on Phillip himself.”
Lim’s second menswear collection addressed some of this criticism, winning strong
reviews. He still has to win over more retailers; Net-a-Porter’s brother site, Mr. Porter,
does not yet stock the line. But Lim is trying to be sanguine about external evaluations,
pro or con: “When I first started, I was so curious about reviews. The more you read
them, you realize there’s always that element of subjectivity. But if I were to say I didn’t
take it personally, I would be lying through my teeth. I’m better at disengaging now
“my own personal
traIts are beIng
aloof and
Introverted,” lIm
says. “I’m In an
Industry that
probes me and
requIres a team.”
and compartmentalizing. It’s a learning process.”
For Lim, the moments of professional triumph aren’t nec-
essarily the awards or the accolades from the big names. Last
October, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of 3. 1 Phillip Lim,
he staged his first runway show in Beijing, an event that he still
sees as his personal acme. Never before had an independent
young designer from the West put on a full-scale show in China.
But that wasn’t why it was significant to Lim. For the first
time, his mother attended one of his shows. “It was her own
country and this perfect alignment of everything,” he says.
“It was a huge moment for me.
“When I grew up, I did everything to disconnect from my
roots,” he says, softly. “But meeting Wen, being of the same
culture, and being more mature about things, it was this
realization: Wow, I love my roots. I’m so happy.”
He seems almost surprised, abashed even, that he has
ended up where he is today. “Things have opened up and all
these roads pointed here,” he says. “You can’t deny all these
coincidences. That’s why I have always believed there’s a
bigger picture for everything. When you’re presented with
opportunity, you ask if it feels right. If it does, then you do it
and you never look back.”
Then he tells me a story from his youth. The summer
after eighth grade, Lim rode his bike past his future high
school, a huge inner-city institution known for its champion-
ship tennis team. The team was out practicing, and attracted
by their pristine uniforms, Lim approached the courts. The
coach lent him a racquet and allowed him to practice hitting a
ball against the wall, and from that point onward, Lim says, he
practiced for eight hours every day. After the team’s practice
was over, he would practice some more. His coach also hired
him to work for his court-resurfacing company. “We’d wake
up at 5 a.m., before the heat seals the asphalt, and go resurface
tennis courts. It was grueling labor. But I was fixated.”
At the start of freshman year, Lim was hitting with the
junior-varsity squad. He heard that the tennis-gear brand
Prince was offering to equip the player with the most potential
with racquets and outfits for his entire high-school career. Lim
unexpectedly challenged the favorite, a sophomore known for
his booming baseline shots, and won in five sets. For the first
time in our days together, Lim offers a bit of a boast: “I was the
first ever on that tennis team to make varsity as a freshman.”
And then he instantly dials it back. “I don’t know if I was
good,” he says. “But I was determined.”
New York–based Bee-Shyuan Chang also writes for The New
York Times and W.
