With winter’s descent upon us, we can’t help but set our sights on spring and all it has to offer. So when we caught wind that American designer Adam Lippes (pronounced “lip-ohs”) was in town with Hudson’s Bay to present the spring 2017 collection of his eponymous, we jumped at the opportunity to sit down with him.
Keep reading to hear Lippes discuss the career change that lunged him into the fashion industry, sound advice he received from Oscar de la Renta, the importance of long-lasting clothes, and what inspires him.
S/ magazine: Let’s start from the beginning: you went to Cornell for psychology and after graduating you went to Paris to study art history and architecture. Between all of that, when did you know you wanted to pursue a career in fashion design?
Adam Lippes: I always wanted to be a fashion designer, but growing up in Buffalo, [that] was not something that you grow up considering–it’s like, “That’s nice, but get a job.” So I went to Cornell, studied psychology, but when I lived in Paris I realized, fashion is a world. It became a world where I met models and designers and coming from Buffalo, Cornell, and Ithica, I wasn’t exposed to that.
I got a job at an investment bank, moved to New York, started that job, and realized, “this is not my life.” So, I applied to the Ralph Lauren store and was hired by the store manager as her executive assistant. I quit the investment banking job after a few months, started at Ralph Lauren, was there for a year, and when she left to go to Oscar de la Renta, I went with her. I was able to really grow up, learning from arguably one of the greatest designers who has ever lived.
S/: About your time at Oscar de la Renta, was there any piece of advice or direction that he gave you that is really relevant to how you approach design now?
AL: Our aesthetic is very different, but the core values of why we design and what we do are very much the same. Oscar taught me about fit, about fabrication, about quality, about colour, and about what our job is as designers and he didn’t take it lightly at all. He felt his job as a designer was to make a woman feel beautiful in a way that when she put on the clothing, she smiled. While our shapes are different, I think my job is exactly the same. Pretty is not a bad word, he never chased cool, I don’t feel I do either.
S/: Your collections never feel aggressively trendy and I think that really resonates with a lot of women as well who just want to see clothing live in their closets.
AL: My most important thing is, you just said it, that [my] clothes will live in the closet and that you’ll be able to wear it forever. A lot of design houses out there force you to be in a costume, but that’s not what we do. We want you to walk into a room with your head high and just feel beautiful.
S/: Springing forward so-to-speak, what was the starting point for your spring 2017 collection?
AL: Animal print and floral are two codes and points of focus for the house right now, pattern wise. I worked with an incredible woman named Costanza Paravicini, who hand paints plates in Milan, on some of the floral patterns for the collection.
S/: What are some of the hero pieces in the collection?
AL: One of my favourites is a very simple cami dress that’s on a French Chattily lace, all embroidered in a floral pattern with micro sequins, and lined in lace. That is the simplest, most luxurious [item].
How would you describe the Adam Lippes woman? How has she evolved?
I think first and foremost, she is a woman; she is not a girl. She loves fashion, but she is not lead by [trends]. She’s lead by quality, she’s lead by discovery.
Browse our 10 favourite looks from Adam Lippes’ spring 2017 collection.
