Amy Smilovic is ready to, as she puts it, “nerd out” in resort season.
“This is the time of year where we really, really double down hard on who we are as a brand,” she explained in Tibi’s downtown showroom. Indeed, Smilovic pushed the boundaries of the brand’s thesis. This time around, her take on elevated, unfussy dressing—with a healthy dose of humor—called for a flannel anorak with a modular belt hidden away in the pocket; a weatherproof trench coat with belt loops at the waist and hip, allowing the wearer to cinch the coat or wear it as a drop waist; and candy-colored nylon peplums that mimic the bottom of a windbreaker, which were show over everything from basic tees to maxi-skirts.
Smilovic is not the kind of designer who is too proud to accept unlikely inspiration. While she’s something of an expert on color, this season’s palette of rich brown, emerald green, and acidic chartreuse came by way of her DMs—a Tibi customer who recommended the American modernist painter Milton Avery. “She said, ‘I was at a museum, and I saw this artist, and I felt like you would love these colors,’” she said. “I went down a rabbit hole, and she was right. I love the colors.”
A factory mistake also led to Tibi’s latest entrant into freaky shoedom—an ultra-wide triangular peep-toe. “I get so mad when you’re working with factories or designers who hide mistakes because so often it’s always worth seeing,” she said. “It’s nice and gross. It’s unsettling.”
That almost ineffable so-wrong-it’s-right feeling applies to the clothing too. “If we do a print, it really needs to be a little icky, a little textural,” Smilovic said, gesturing to a tracksuit rendered in a burgundy floral silk jacquard. Elsewhere, a belt with three large gold buckles adds instant intrigue even to the simplest outfit. It’s now, during this transient time of year, that allows Smilovic to dig into “more of the why behind the clothing rather than just what,” she said, “and certainly not what trends.” Never the trends.
