BUILT TO LAST

Fashion designer Phillip Lim assembles a dream trip to Sri Lanka around one of his architectural heroes and returns home full of fresh ideas

- REBECCA MISNER

"I TELL MY FRIENDS that I'm now midcentury modern," the New York-based fashion designer Phillip Lim quips about turning 50. "And like the furniture, hopefully, better with age." Joking aside, Lim, who launched his 3.1 Phillip Lim label in 2005 and now sells his signature clean-lined clothing in shops around the world, saw the landmark birthday as a chance to take stock. "I heard somewhere that, with 50, you get a second dawn. I took that to heart."

For starters, he sold the Manhattan apartment where he'd lived for 16 years and turned his 1940s bungalow on the North Fork of Long Island into his primary home. But the weekend place needed renovating, which was one of Lim's reasons for booking a trip to Sri Lanka, a destination he'd long dreamed of visiting. "The colors, the flavors, the energy - I always feel creatively inspired by Southeast Asia," says Lim. He'd previously traveled throughout Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, "but Sri Lanka was on my bucket list because of Geoffrey Bawa."