Chill, modern, classic. These three words epitomize Tibi’s recipe for an outfit that is reliable but never flat, how every creative pragmatist ought to feel when they leave the house. Consider it the well-balanced flavor profile of a dish that keeps you going to a restaurant that is just downright cool. Tibi has these same factors.
I learned of the brand founded by Amy Smilovic in 1997 during the pandemic when they started “Style Class,” a series of live Instagram sessions on Wednesdays that allowed consumers to further sink their teeth into the brand. In one installment of the series, Smilovic, who is also the brand’s creative director, might be talking through a forthcoming collection. The following week, an employee might join to discuss how to look polished without trying too hard for a PTA meeting.
It’s these little tips and tricks they give that keep so many of us engaged. Like how a navy suit reads plain until you size up, slash the sleeves, and toss in a metallic loafer. In Tibi’s hands, a white button-up and jeans get a refreshing take when the denim is barreled and sits above their quirky Larry heel. The brand’s vocabulary is full of terms that make dressing easier for its intrinsically stylish supporters: “Bigs & Pigs,” “Without Fails,” and “In & Outs.”
Tibi teaches people how to dress. Not in the typical runway fashion—where designers send clothes and ideas down the catwalk for viewers to pick up or not (though they do that, too). But by actually speaking to them. Smilovic encapsulates the appeal of Tibi’s clothes by saying that the designs under her house “are clothes that morph with the individual.” She adds: “The clothing has an inherent ease in it, so it morphs with the individual that wants dimension.”
The refined and fashionably confident alike can find something in the brand’s inventory that is sure to bring a sigh of relief. Because, unlike other labels, Tibi isn’t projecting some lifestyle image onto its customers to sell products. This isn’t to be mistaken with a lack of perspective; that much is evident. But there’s a breathability, a weightlessness, and a range to the brand’s clothes that make you feel like you can start fresh.
In 2023, Tibi captured this in a book, The Creative Pragmatist: An Intelligent Conversation About Personal Style, which is now sold out. Its second edition is currently available online. Smilovic is currently at work on another, with Penguin Random House, Almost Reckless, a book about gaining comfort in risk-taking. It felt like a kind of risk when I bought my first Tibi piece, a jade-green Tibi leather tote with a white stripe down the middle, compact with supple leather that gave it a lived-in feel. But before then, I’d always wondered why menswear brands didn’t modernize their classics instead of shelling out redundant pieces.
Fana Haile, a Tibi stylist who’s introduced several men to the brand, saw a unique opportunity for Tibi to thrive in the menswear market. She noticed this when she began working at the SoHo brick-and-mortar last year. Haile has previously styled NBA players and was once a men’s stylist at Barney’s New York before the New York City cult favorite store shut down.
In SoHo, she has become somewhat of a menswear whisperer and staunch supporter. She built up this repertoire by asking her friends to drop into the store and model menswear pieces–they obliged. “It took off like wildfire,” she said over a phone call. She adds that what’s kept them shopping at Tibi is that they’ve cultivated a community that encourages exploration.
Men don’t often have that luxury in fashion. However, tunnel fashion represents a newer method of self-expression. And Tibi, though centered largely on womenswear, will create this space for men to experiment with their style and put a dent in a divided market.
According to Haile, men are drawn to the same stylishly utilitarian details as the brand’s core customers, snaps at the bottom of their Sid pants to prevent floor-dragging, a cocoon sweatshirt to free up the hands, for example.
Writer, influencer, and Honor Code founder Rachel Solomon says Tibi shines due to its consistency. “They’re using the same structure on their shoe’s uppers, and clothing-wise, I think they’re using the same sloper, making lots of different looks with it,” Solomon explains. Solomon also says the brand is successful because of the predictability of how their clothes fit. “[Their clothing is] made to be able to buy online.”
Tibi is also intentional. Smilovic, for one, says she responds to inquiries on Instagram as part of her job. The brand’s stylists (who you can find by typing “.tibi” in the app’s search bar), are front and center, ready to share their superior product knowledge and useful style advisory, seemingly because they love to do it. That’s next-level service.
It’s also quite rare in an industry where in-store stylists are essentially well-dressed cashiers. This points to qualities that content strategist and research agency co-founder Jessica Quillin describes as honest and authentic and “fully appropriate for a brand with roots in Georgia.”
Quillin believes the way the label has carved out its place in fashion’s landscape is genuine, like a Southern greeting. From a strategy perspective, she expresses that Amy Smilovic and her team have built Tibi “the smart way,” which has led to organic growth for the brand.
A scroll through Tibi’s Instagram page or lookbooks will immediately inspire a reimagining of one’s style, without spending a dime. That is until consumers find themselves chatting with the stylists, reading Tibi’s blog “The Good Ick,” subscribing to their Substack, “The Creative Pragmatist,” by Smilovic, and anticipating their well-attended New York Fashion Week presentations to see what they’ll add to their growing collection of creatively pragmatic attire.
The word influence is used ad nauseam these days, but, the brand’s got influence. Influence so real they’ve been privileged to cultivate an audience whose loyalty surpasses superficial fandom.
Next year, Tibi will turn an 8,000-square-foot loft on the corners of New York’s Broadway and Bond Street into a full media studio. Stylists will use it to host their own shows. (Think LiveSell meets SCTV). Clients will also be able to join them to map out their long-term wardrobes.
The brand’s expansion with a media studio points to how Smilovic is aligning her innovative world-building with digital communities. And, most importantly, how she and her employees are prioritizing the women and men who buy Tibi. Deliberate and in-tune: the traits of a brand running its own race, at its own pace. Tibi is fashion’s best-kept secret hiding in plain sight.
Tibi and its clients have a perspective on clothes that is clear, with a bit of wiggle room for the ever-evolving self. To put it plainly, they’ve reinvented how to build a wardrobe–that’s what makes them so cool and coveted.
