Adam Lippes is on a roll.
The designer, celebrating 20 years in business, is opening a private shopping room in a home on Fifth Avenue and 64th Street in an apartment where nightclub queen Donna Summer used to live.
“We had been looking for something in Madison and thinking about how to compete with the big brands because not only do their spaces cost a million dollars a month, but the construction is extreme. And our clothes are just as beautiful and luxurious as theirs,” Lippes said.
That's when he found the building and was inspired to create a Halston-style lounge experience, where Lippes will also have an apartment of his own, one with quite the fashion pedigree: the swan and society's once-favorite designer, Adolfo. lived there.
“They're grand and luxurious and it's going to be a lot of fun to activate the space and have private shopping and champagne and drinks and do the 'if you know, you know' kind of thing,” said Lippes, who will no doubt decorate them. with style (her home in the Berkshires is featured in this month's Architectural Digest).
“It will be open by appointment all the time,” he said of the space, which he hopes to be finished by late fall.
The retail expansion comes on the heels of Lippes opening a new store last month in Houston's River Oaks neighborhood, home to his financial investors, the Sarofim family and their fund management empire. He also plans to open a store in Palm Beach in September, and the Brookfield Place store in New York will remain open.
He shared the news during a preview of his resort 2025 collection, which reaffirmed his position as one of America's leading sportswear designers today with smart, wearable and timeless pieces in luxury fabrics, like the ultimate tailored denim shirt in a special cashmere denim, tucked into the perfect dark gold khaki pants with a belt and paper bag waist.
The utilitarian thread continued with a fabulous belted khaki work shirt over matching wide-leg pants with botanical embroidery on the outside of the legs. This seasonal print comes from an image of an 18th-century botanical book found in the library of her Italian fabric factory, Lippes said, explaining that her studio repainted it and also adapted it for embroidery, as seen on the dress. Sleeveless white knit.
The classics kept coming, including crisp stand-collar shirts, a blue striped blouse and pants set, soft, high-waisted black leather pants with statement gold buttons, and a lightly distressed shrunken leather bomber jacket. “We've never made leather clothing and now we're working with, I think, the best leather manufacturer in the world,” he said of the new step.
A trench coat, button-down shirt, and paper-bag-waist pants in super-fine heather gray cotton cashmere that matched the crispness of cotton, it was a new, simple take on a suit: loose, comfortable, and American.
Another locker room hero? A loose-fitting double-faced navy cashmere coat with a huge attached scarf that can be wrapped around your face. Just the ideal for the VIP who sneaks into that new shopping hall in the upper area.
