Inside the Tibi NYFW event

Fabrics, friendships, and the pieces I couldn’t leave without pre-ordering.

Tech details of this collection in the bg

Most fashion shows give you two seconds with each look before it disappears behind the curtain. Tibi’s Fashion Week event gave us hours. Hours to touch the fabrics, ask the models questions, connect with Amy and Traci, and geek out with other women who love these clothes as much as I do. It was magic!

NYFW: The show party something-in-Between

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Credit to my fellow Tibi Fan, thisisaynsleigh for the video of the event above. Go check it out and follow her.

This year Tibi flipped the script. The morning was for industry insiders. But in the afternoon they threw a party for us — their customers. And it was a game-changer.

Picture this: you walk in and the space hums with energy. There are drinks in hand, trays of food, music pulsing low enough to talk but strong enough to move with. And weaving through it all — models, not behind a velvet rope, but right there with us, in the clothes.

Instead of a two-second blur on a runway, it was intimate and interactive. A show you could actually touch.

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You can’t ask a runway model if she can sit down

Here’s where it got magical. You could actually stop a model mid-walk and ask the kind of questions you really want answered:

“Is that hoop skirt heavy?”
“Can you actually sit in it?” (Spoiler: one gave us a full demo. You can.)
“Does the fabric feel hot?”
“Are there snaps?”

They walked for hours, patiently answering everything. And then came my favorite part — being able to feel the fabrics (always with permission, because I wasn’t about to be that person).

I have this weird intuition: if I can touch a fabric, I know instantly how it will sit on me, how it will drape, how it will live in my closet. That’s why Tibi is so satisfying — they repeat fabrics often enough that once you know, you know. But this time there were new surprises, new textures, new pushes. The Sid Jean in ultra suede? Straight to my mental must-have list.

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The people, the vibe, and fuck the noise

Of course, it wasn’t just about the clothes. It was the people.

I finally met

Amy smilovic

. For years, I’d missed her at events — wrong city, wrong timing. And yet there she was, in front of me, greeting me like an old friend. I know we all feel her warmth through her writing and through the LIVEs — it’s what built this brand — but in person it’s on another level. She doesn’t talk to you like a customer. She talks to you like a fellow nerd who loves these clothes as much as she does. She geeks out, points at details, laughs with you. And suddenly you love the clothes more because you’re seeing them through her eyes.

I got to thank Traci(SVP of Design at Tibi) for her impeccable design work, which felt like closing a loop I’d been holding for years. And then there was the community itself — hugging women I’d only known through screens, swapping stories, realizing instantly that we “get” each other.

When I first joined Substack, being a Tibi fan didn’t always feel safe — complaints, sustainability debates, whispers about “cult-like” behavior. But this event cut through all that noise. It reminded me that this is what it really is: a big, beautiful community stitched together by a shared love of clothes. My cup? Overflowing.

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The stylists who make it all happen

I also have to say — one of the best parts of the afternoon was getting to connect with the Tibi stylists. I’ve known my stylist Acacia for years now, and I can’t even put into words how much I adore her. She is one of the warmest, most genuine people, and every time we talk it feels like catching up with a friend who just happens to know exactly how to push my style forward in the best way. Seeing her in person was such a joy.

And it wasn’t just Acacia. Huge shoutout to Keturah, Davina, Grace, Sloane, Lee, Fana, and so many others. These are the people who make the magic of Tibi real for all of us — translating the vision into our lives, listening, guiding, encouraging, and always keeping it fun. Warm, thoughtful, endlessly stylish. Being able to hug them, laugh with them, and thank them in person was just as meaningful as seeing the collection itself.

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Let’s talk pre-orders (Because you know I did it)

Now, the clothes.

Tibi only offered pre-orders on a handful of special pieces — part of their sustainability model. (They don’t mass-produce. Think: 14 suede tees in a size medium. That’s it.) The pre-orders let them know how many to produce for the more pushed pieces.

And here’s where I landed:

The shiny black peplum belt. The moment I saw it, I knew. Sculptural, striking, the kind of third piece that instantly elevates whatever you’re wearing. It wasn’t even a decision as much as it was an instinct.

The hoop skirt in chartreuse. At first, I felt a little let down by the lack of big color. (I’m a pops-of-color girl through and through.) But then this chartreuse came out and my heart stopped. It’s architectural, foldable, unapologetic. Exactly that perfect Tibi balance of creativity and pragmatism. I could see it styled for a black-tie night or thrown on with a t-shirt and sneakers. That’s when I knew: this one was coming home.

The pleated pants (Brown). If you know me, you know I love anything that emphasizes the hips — it’s edgy, unexpected, such a cool area to play with. These pleats? Beyond. The design is pushed, but still office-wearable. Both colors haunted me, but the brown won out. Pragmatic, yes, but also just so me right now. Darker bottoms feel like home. I’m obsessed already.

The leather mini dress with the hoop. This one was a whole journey. Short. Risky. That hoop detail makes sitting… interesting. And for years, I lived by a strict rule: everything I buy has to work for the office. One closet, no bifurcation. But standing there, I realized maybe it’s okay to break that. Maybe it’s okay to buy clothes that are just for joy. This skirt felt like permission to do exactly that. And it felt liberating.

Honorable mentions not available for pre-order yet: the double-seam shoulder shirt (basically my dream silhouette), tanks with sculptural backs, and those 90s-inflected details pushed forward in the most Tibi way. And the ultrasuede sids, did I talk about those already?

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The shoes (And one brilliant detail)

The sandals. Everyone was buzzing about them. Sparkling, embellished, impossible to ignore. Amy told me she had the beading done in India, then assembled in Italy, because no one else was doing it to her standards. And honestly? Genius. I might be biased, but no one does embellishment like India. Dries, Gucci — they all know where to go.

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What this collection said

To me, this collection was Tibi at its best: pragmatic yet pushed, playful yet architectural, wearable but never safe.

But what made it even more compelling was hearing Amy talk about how she and Traci built it. Traci starts with shape — literally working fabric on the form until it feels right. Amy starts with words — what’s shifting, what feels stagnant, what needs to evolve. This season, those two processes met at some fascinating references: Brutalist and Bauhaus architecture on Amy’s side, Ursula Sax’s Geometric Ballet on Traci’s.

You could feel that intersection everywhere. The sculptural grit of Brutalism, the refined simplicity of Bauhaus, the playful geometry of Sax. It explained why the palette leaned into sharpened neutrals — greys, browns, greens, black, white — and why the silhouettes carried both clean modern lines and exaggerated volumes.

The whole thing felt like a study in opposites: grit and elegance, soft and edged, carefree but purposeful. Many things true at once, stitched into one collection.

Clothes for the confident, unapologetic woman who doesn’t ask for permission.

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The real magic

At the end of the day, the fabrics were beautiful, the details exquisite, the pieces unforgettable. But the real masterpiece wasn’t on the racks or on the models.

It was in the conversations. The laughter. The shared obsession. The reminder that style is more than fabric — it’s community, confidence, and the unapologetic joy of loving what you love.

There were countless women there who feel just as deeply connected to this brand — each of us arriving with our own lives, but finding common ground in these clothes. Talking with them reminded me how similar our mindsets are: creative, pragmatic, curious, a little daring. Women who aren’t afraid to experiment, to play, to push themselves forward.

That’s what makes this community so rare. It’s not only about what we wear, but about how we think — the overlap in values, the joy in geeking out over details, the quiet confidence in showing up fully ourselves. Getting to meet these women in person, to connect beyond the screen, was just as meaningful as the clothes themselves.

Because yes, the clothes are beautiful. But the women who wear it are even more inspiring.

And maybe that’s the point. Fashion week, at its core might have become about chasing trends or proving insider status. But for me it came as a reminder that clothes are tools we use to express who we are, to connect with each other, to test the line between creativity and pragmatism.

Tibi does that better than anyone I know. They make clothes you can live in, play in, work in — and sometimes, clothes you can’t explain but just need. Because joy is reason enough.

So the chartreuse skirt, the leather mini, the pleated pants — they’ll hang in my closet soon. But what I really took home was something harder to fold and pack: that feeling of belonging, of confidence, of being unapologetically myself.

And that, to me, is what great style really is.

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