Adam Lippes X OKA

“My heart lives in England,” says Adam Lippes. As evidenced in his exuberant Brooklyn apartment and 100-acre estate near Monterey, Massachusetts, the American fashion designer has enjoyed a lifelong love affair with English style .

“I don’t know where it comes from, really,” says Lippes, who has been making transatlantic trips since he was 10 years old – most recently to visit the London boutiques that purvey the eponymous label he founded in 2013. “But it started with English interiors, from [famed manor house] Chatsworth to [the

Vogue photographer] Cecil Beaton’s Reddish House. These houses flow so beautifully; they’re the perfect mix of grandeur and casualness.”

It’s the same easy elegance that’s at the core of Lippes’ own creative empire; running seamlessly throughout his homes and his celebrated clothing collections. “Adam is a keen collector with a very sophisticated eye – and he loves entertaining,” says OKA co-founder Sue Jones, who felt compelled to propose a project with the designer after being introduced by a mutual friend. “He came to England and we got along straight away. There was great synergy right from the start.”

Although Lippes had been approached many times to collaborate with other interiors brands, before OKA, nothing felt right. “I don’t believe that things have to be expensive, but I do believe in quality,” he says. “One of the founding tenets of my label is that I don’t want to just make more stuff.” What also jived with Lippes – besides its Anglo appeal – is the fact that at OKA, “everything is created on the basis of need and love.”

“I don’t believe that things have to be expensive, but I do believe in quality.”

The son of a decorator and a lawyer (and serious art collector) Lippes grew up in Buffalo, New York. Obsessed with décor from an early age, his mother would frequently consult him in the creation of their homes; a fact, he says, that lent validity to his visual point of view right from the start.

So why not become an interior designer? “I always wanted to be in fashion,” he says. After studying psychology at Cornell, and a fleeting misstep into investment banking, Lippes started out at Ralph Lauren, later joining Oscar de la Renta, where he remained for close to a decade. By 28, he was creative director, a role that included overseeing the launch of the label’s interiors collections. With their legendary homes and entertaining style, Oscar and Annette de la Renta were a seminal influence – and his first introduction to OKA. “Working there exposed me to some of the greatest houses in the world,” says Lippes. “My sense of style was given to me by my parents, but refined by Oscar.”

This process of education hasn’t stopped since. In his womenswear creations, Lippes draws from the bold and daring designs of decorators such as David Hicks, Renzo Mongiardino and Billy Baldwin. “I’m very passionate about the mix – blending centuries and styles and giving everything a foundation in classicism,” he explains. “That’s how I live – and that’s how it is when you enter OKA’s stores.”

And so began a fruitful exchange that has evolved, over nearly two years, into a Lippes X OKA tableware collection that includes ceramics, glassware and linen. The creative process started with a series of mood boards – a veritable menagerie of images of ceramic roosters, boars and birds, monkeys and dragonflies alongside fantastical toile de jouy fashion confections. For Jones, however, it was a series of pictures of Famille Rose plates – the Chinese export porcelain style popularized in the 18th century and characterized by its opaque decoration in shades of blush pink and crimson – that stood out. “I knew immediately that this was the way to go,” she says of the delicate ceramics that she has long avidly collected.

This rich mélange of references gave rise to the centerpiece of the project, a collection of elaborately embellished bone china

“I wanted to create a modern rendition of Chinese export patterns.”

dinnerware that’s inhabited by butterflies, tropical birds and flora. “I wanted to create a modern rendition of Chinese export patterns,” explains Lippes, who leafed through auction catalogues and surveyed the collection at the Met for source material. It’s perhaps no surprise that the Famille Rose plates were some of the most complex to create. After Lippes conjured the design in his New York studio, OKA consultant Molly Lu charged an artist in

Chaillot

Dress up your everyday dining table with these white cotton napkins and placemats, adorned with an ornate Art Deco hemstitched border. 4 x Cotton Napkins 20”Sq $95

4 x Cotton Placemats 12”Sq $95

southern China with recreating the composition in watercolor on specialty rice paper, known as “Xuan paper”. After playing with the scale of the motifs and carefully adjusting the colors, the artwork was then digitally rendered by OKA’s London studio, ready to apply to the smooth and translucent fine bone china. “It’s so full of color and vibrancy,” says Lippes of the finished product, which can be mixed and matched with simpler styles.

Much like Lippes’ playful runway creations, the Famille Rose ceramics effortlessly meld prettiness with practicality. “I’m a great believer in using what you have,” says Lippes. “They look as though they’re your grandmother’s finest inherited china, but they’ll go in the dishwasher.” The same is true for the crystalware, which borrows its form from a classic OKA wine glass, with a bright Lippes flourish of painted rims and dots. The decorative motifs of the Famille Rose dinnerware are also hand-embroidered on white cotton napkins. “These are not pieces that you’re going to be able to find anywhere else,” says Lippes.

The OKA project certainly came at an opportune moment for the fashion designer, who’d had porcelain on his mind. He’d recently been eyeing a vast set of Chinese export dinnerware at a Dallas auction house – hunting for curios is one of the designer’s best-loved pastimes. “I was literally about to place a bid,” he says. “But now I just don’t need it.”

Roseraie

Inspired by antique Famille Rose porcelain that was fashionable in Europe during the Late Baroque period, featuring a menagerie of colorful flora and fauna. 4 x Dinner Plates 10”Dia $250 4 x Starter Plates 9”Dia

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$125

4 x Bowls 7.5”Dia $150 4 x Embroidered Cotton Napkins 19.5”Sq $95

& Saucer 6.5”Diax3”H $60 Tea Cup

Coquille Simple yet elegant bone china plates and crystal glasses finished with a dainty teardrop border, which contrasts beautifully with the patterned designs.

4 x Dinner Plates 10”Dia $250 4 x Starter/Side Plates

8”Dia $195 4 x Bowls 7.5”Dia $150 4 x Crystal Wine

Glasses Small 3.5”Diax5”H $195 | Large 3.5”Diax5.5”H $215