Phillip Lim’s show was a celebration of his 20 years in business. Looking around the room, just a small fraction of us were there for his start. Fashion is a notoriously challenging industry based on change. Most of Lim’s contemporaries from his mid-2000s beginnings have quietly slipped off of Vogue Runway’s review grid, victims of financial difficulties, too few ideas, or some other random problem. How does it feel to be one of the survivors? Backstage Lim used one word: joyful.

The secret to Lim’s success is his eye for changing trends and his ability to incorporate them into his own brand vocabulary—his adaptability, you could say. So it was somewhat surprising to learn, on being told that he had used the color of the moment, that he was unfamiliar with the phenomenon of brat green. “It’s a color I wore in California when I was young,” he said by way of explanation. In any case, it appeared on a cool pair of loose-fitting jeans with zips down the sides that could get a girl out of her true blues.

His vocabulary is strong. I recognized the rosettes from a spring 2007 collection, his first-ever runway show way back when. Other callbacks included lace tops with football jersey proportions, the crystal fringe numbers, and all the hybrids, like denim spliced with sweats and patched with camouflage, and “mantra” T-shirts that morphed into slip dresses. But Lim also tried new things, like taking up the length of skirts for a couple of micro wrap skirts and an acid-washed denim mini.

Pressed for feelings about the milestone, Lim offered up words that felt rather like something he could print on one of those tees: “It feels like I can only guarantee the moment.” Fashion, he said, “comes and goes; lengths, colors change. But joy is a human quality we can all tap into, we can all share. And right now, at this time in particular, joy is so necessary.” That was the wisdom of experience talking, then he put it into action when he invited his studio team out with him to take a 20th anniversary bow.