Since launching her eponymous brand last fall, Phoebe Philo’s PR strategy has been not to have one. Other than an interview in The New York Times, she’s remained her elusive self, with no presence on social media or in person on the party circuit. Until now. Yesterday, AnOther Magazine’s Jefferson Hack announced that the designer has art directed and styled its new cover shoot. “This is an instant classic,” Hack wrote in his caption, and he’s got a point. I can’t recall another fashion mag featuring a model with a handsaw on its cover.
Today, in what’s unlikely to be a coincidence, she’s dropping the third edit of Phoebe Philo online on her e-commerce site and in-store at 10 Corso Como in Milan and Bergdorf Goodman in New York. In the weeks to come, her wholesale presence will expand at Dover Street Market (London and Paris), Maxfield (Los Angeles), Neiman Marcus (Los Angeles), and The Webster (Miami). The brand is somewhat loftily calling edit three “the completion of the first body of work,” but that loftiness feels earned. Scarf tops and loose-fitting trousers with zippers up the back, two things she introduced in earlier edits, have been key trends in the spring 2025 collections in New York.
Arriving in stores alongside other brands’ fall deliveries, edit three’s hero piece is a robe coat in brindle shearling. It signals a focus on texture and print that continues with a blanket wrap in brindle mohair wool and jeans featuring those signature back zips in a warm brown acid wash. Picking up the scarf dressing motif from earlier edits, Philo’s designed trousers with a front apron attachment; clip it in and your go-to work pants are suddenly something special for an evening out. She’s also done a utility shirt and cargos in luscious cream silk satin, blurring day and night distinctions.
Not pictured in this selection of images, but interesting, are a couple of back-baring pieces, one a top in candy floss silk satin and the other a mini dress with ’80s shoulders and a nipped waist in acid wash cotton. In many of these photos, new pieces are styled with previously released items, reflecting her efforts, expressed earlier, “to create a product which reflects permanence.” With this “first body of work” completed, the question is what comes next? Yesterday’s news that Sarah Burton has been named creative director of Givenchy adds a woman designer to the Paris calendar next March. Could Philo join her, and stage a show of her own? She moves on her own schedule, but we’ll be watching.
