Adam Lippes held his spring 2025 appointments in his new salon off Fifth Avenue, steps from Central Park. The space once was occupied by Donna Summer. He’ll live across the foyer in even grander room that used to belong to Adolfo, the designer to Nancy Reagan. In a busy week of shows and presentations up and down Manhattan and across the river in Brooklyn, it made for a delightful interlude. There was a Sant’Ambroeus lunch spread, and for a repeat visit when the fashion month rush is over, a well-stocked bar, a stack of books, and a fireplace. Oh, and he’ll have a sales team and seamstresses on site; though it’s officially a by-appointment operation, he says the door will always be open. He already has a store downtown, launched bravely in the early days of reopening post-pandemic. But this private experience is something new for him—and for New York City. There’s been a lot of talk about a return to retail, but not much in the way of innovation on the sales floor. “I built the brand one-on-one, and this is a luxurious way to shop,” he said.
Lippes’s new spring collection looked at home in the beautiful space: serene and lovely, but not retiring. As tempting as it might be to linger in the hushed embrace of his new salon, Lippes’s clients lead busy, active lives, and he designs for them. The first piece he pulled off a rack was a jean jacket, cropped and boxy with gold buttons featuring his freshly redesigned logo, made from hand-loomed, stonewashed Japanese denim. It looked refined but not without a sense of cool. That’s a hard balance, and it’s one that Lippes just keeps getting better at. He had downtown editor types cooing over a black double-satin evening coat with a removable hood, a lean-line silk crepe shirtdress with delicate broderie anglaise, a 1930s-ish dress in butter yellow bias silk with twisted shoulder details, and an exceptional tunic-length tank of hand-cut mother of pearl teardrop beads worn with full-legged utility pants. The most luscious material of all was the mulberry silk he used for both a bouclé skirt suit in palest lilac and a knitted tank, shown in black in the lookbook belted over another midi-skirt. “It’s the finest silk in the world,” he pointed out. Chez Adam Lippes of course it is.
