Here are some of the things that Tibi’s Amy Smilovic and her team were looking at as inspiration for their summer collection: western motifs, sporty nylon fabrics, feminine dressing, and the 1970s animated TV show Fat Albert. “I know it’s a weird reference, but that was the color inspiration,” Smilovic explained on a recent video call. The opening look is a fashion version of the Dumb Donald character, his green sweater turned into a minimalist slip dress, and his oversized beanie into a kind of felted extra-large baseball cap whipped up by Rae Godin, Tibi’s artist-in-residence. A handsome dusty purple-greige suit has its origins in the wardrobe of one Rudy Davis, while Mushmouth’s red pants, held up by a string, become a crinkly pair of pink trousers accessorized with a western belt and gold and silver chain belts with a lobster motif closure. A blue and brown striped matching terry shorts set worn with a white tech-y lab coat embodied the designer’s wish for that “ease and femininity you crave in June and July, but doing it with a sporty attitude.”
Not everything was cartoon-ified. Dresses retained a certain elegance and ease: a long black spaghetti strap number with a high square neck was done in a tech-y fabric with un-tech-y flocked polka dots, while another had soft triangular sculptural details that created a sort of whisk-shape in a a new negative-space take on the balloon-silhouette trend.
“I think that when we are craving things that have a little bit more femininity, exploring various ways of creating sculpture that is still soft is more important, because it is so easy to fall into tropes and then you don’t feel like yourself,” Smilovic said. “We give ourselves lots of room to experiment and play.”
