Runway to Red Carpet: The Celebrity Set Keeps It Up Across the Pond

In case you haven’t been counting down with the rest of us, the Oscars are next weekend. And while the highly anticipated red carpet is known as the awards season’s most glamorous, the celebrity set wasn’t holding back during this week’s events across the pond. Sunday’s British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards saw our current red-carpet favorites hit it out of the sartorial ballpark yet again. Lupita Nyong’o was statuesque in an emerald green silk Dior Couture gown accented with a metallic gold-lacquered belt and cuffs, and Cate Blanchett, who took home the BAFTA trophy for best actress, walked the red carpet in a black column with a silver tulip jacquard from Alexander McQueen’s Pre-Fall ’14 lineup. We should also mention that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie turned up in matching suits: Jolie opted for a casually undone tux from Saint Laurent; Pitt, meanwhile, wore Valentino.

Later in the week, on Wednesday, the music set stole the spotlight at the Brit Awards in London. International Female Solo Artist winner Lorde stuck to her favorite color palate, accepting her trophy in a black Tom Ford Spring ’14 gown covered in fractured mirrors. Ever-dapper music mogul Pharrell Williams chose a charcoal gray lamé effect suit by his red-carpet go-to, Lanvin. While he left his now-famous Vivienne Westwood topper (which is currently getting auctioned off on eBay for charity, the latest bid being $10,500) home for this outing, we’re hoping he has more red-carpet surprises up his sleeve.

3.1 Phillip Lim

Phillip Lim left the West to found 3.1 Phillip Lim in New York, but you get the sense the West never left him. It's there in his groovy, SoCal brand of Zen, and it occasionally bubbles up into his collections, which are often structured around Western archetypes like surfers or easy riders. Today he added cowboys to his pantheon of alterna-heroes. 

Of course, the West isn't just a region on a map. Lim, given to lofty pronouncements, was channeling a West of the mind. "It's this territory that shadows the line between vanishing mythology and reality," he said. "The cowboy is its hometown hero." 

Lim's collections often ride that same line between mythology and reality that cowboys do. He's fond, especially when show season comes around, of dressing his men both larger and odder than life. But the cowboy theme actually served to ground him. This collection reminded you that Lim's label is built on gussied-up takes on essentially wearable clothes. Playing on Westerniana gave him the opportunity to indulge his decorative and outré side in context. Fall means leather, so there were jodhpur-cut leather lounge pants whose exaggeratedly high cuffs gave them the look of trompe l'oeil boots. Fall also means coats, but in addition to the oversize versions in speckled bouclé, Lim showed shirt-jackets in leather and in jersey: Not a new idea, but one which made good use of the turtleneck layering pieces that have emerged across the shows as a certifiable fall trend-to-be. 

Lim laughed at the suggestion that he might be pining for a move back West. He's in New York to stay, he said. But the West brought out good work in him. Even with its occasional thematic groaners, like the horse-print sweatshirts, this lineup seemed like a departure from the past few seasons—less finicky, more relaxed. Lim's icons have often been bad boys, but, he said, the cowboy represented a new tip of the hat to the good guys. "It's a new year," was his perfectly Zen explanation.

3.1 Phillip Lim

Here comes the sun! This season Phillip Lim gave his imaginary muse a name—Soleil—and designed a collection fitted to her summery personality. Despite evidence to the contrary, Lim made winter seem a cheerful affair, with brightly colored patchwork shearlings, peppy cold-weather pastels, pretty collage print dresses and button-down tops. What's not to like? Apparently even Soleil has some dark moods, however, and Lim's show was the better for it. If the upbeat clothes were very appealing, the ones that came out later, in deeper colors, had a moody poetry that added dimension to the collection. Of particular note were the knits, with their waterfalls of irregular ruffles. One ruffled sweater, in navy, made for a very convincing evening proposition when paired with Lim's nicely judged silk-satin wrap-over pant. As is typical for 3.1 Phillip Lim, the individual pieces here made a stronger statement than the collection as a whole, and this show was chock-full of additions to Fall's must-have list: The lace-up boots, one of those shearling coats, a baggy trench, a mid-calf skirt in lavender and aubergine…. Lim is keeping his Soleils happy, making stuff like that; it's not clear he needs to do more.