Calling Hong Kong its first home, Tibi emerged in a city known for its vibrancy and entrepreneurism. With a professional background in marketing and advertising and a childhood spent in a family of artists on an island off the coast of Georgia, Amy Smilovic, founder and creative director of Tibi channeled her business and creative energies into developing prints in Indonesia and combining them with fabrics sourced from Italy and France. She developed prototypes that quickly transformed into a contemporary clothing line in 1997. Amy and her husband moved back to the U.S. in 2000 to focus on growing the company. Now 24 years later, Tibi is a global womenswear brand known for its refined aesthetic of modern yet feminine and effortless dressing. Amy and her team’s designs speak to a broad range of individuals whom the brand describes as Creative Pragmatists. They seek creativity and self-expression but want their clothing to be functional and practical.

How did Tibi get started?
I started Tibi in 1997 after roles in advertising and marketing at Ogilvy and American Express. It was born out of a desire to do my own thing, be an entrepreneur and use my artistic talents combined with my marketing expertise.

Tell us about Tibi’s upcoming collection.
We’re finally in Fall 2021 right now and the idea is heavily about creative expression and a desire to think on your own and carve your own path, regardless of what is surrounding you.

Where do you find inspiration?
I find inspiration everywhere. I am the victim of going down rabbit holes. If you are a super curious person, which I am, this tends to happen. I explore an artist, which may lead me to music, which leads me to the history behind the music, which may ultimately land me somewhere interesting. All along the way I’m paying attention to what I am liking, or not liking, and building a visual in my head.

How did growing up on a small island affect who and where you are today?
I think that growing up in a small place gives me perspective. I had limited exposure to the world around me. It makes me appreciate that growing means stepping outside of your world and exploring, while, at the same time, when you have not been exposed to many new things, it does not mean that you are not open to them, or that you have limited range in your mind. I think many tend to write off people from smaller towns, but there is an ease in a slowed-down life where you can stop, appreciate, and absorb what is happening around you. I’ve spent much of my lifetime now in New York City trying to get that back and didn’t fully appreciate how badly it was needed and that it had to happen.

Where did you get your start in business and fashion? How did you elevate yourself into starting your own company?
I always was an entrepreneur at heart. I moved to Hong Kong in 1997 when I left American Express, so I was forced to do something new. I knew I did not want another corporate job so I devised a plan to start a company that would tap into my skills: art, advertising, marketing, and general business. Starting a clothing company seemed logical to me and in a place like Hong Kong, which was comparatively easy to do or to get started than anywhere else in the world. Hong Kong was and still is renowned for its entrepreneurial spirit.

What are some tips for finding your personal style? How would you describe your personal style?
I really encourage people to look back at when they felt their best. Not their prettiest or smartest, but just generally the most comfortable with themselves. When you do this, you find yourself using adjectives to describe the moment: relaxed, modern, effortless, and refined., When they describe their style, people, almost every time use nouns: miniskirts, A-line, full blouse. They limit themselves to dressing by shape and item rather than by feeling. If you don’t truly know how you want to feel and what will get you there you will never understand your style.

What do you find most enjoyable about making clothing?
The fact that it involves constant change. It is never stagnant. The idea that you can love something and then move on from it yet still retain a core that is consistent. I love this idea, it’s like being reborn. I don’t think I could ever work in a business that has one or two products over its lifetime.

What are some of your top selling products?
We are known for our pants and blazers, but not at all in a work way. Our best sellers do change because we change and evolve in our desires. This year the best may be our nylon joggers and giant oversized blazers, but next year it could be about a fitted dress. Who knows, it will all depend on what I am in the mood for.

As someone who has worked in the fashion industry for decades, what do you think are some positive and negative changes in the industry?
Honestly, I can really only speak to the changes at Tibi because for all the discussion of change on an industry wide level, I just don’t see it. There is truly little difference in the industry as a whole in 2021 from the industry I entered into in 1997. Except there is just more, more, more. At Tibi, we are a much smaller brand than we ever were in terms of top-line sales. We are producing small runs targeted specifically to people who are Creative Pragmatists. They love and crave modernity and creativity and are fully cognizant of the functional needs of their clothing and accessories at the same time. They crave the balance between the two. This means we produce far less than ever before. We sit with designs longer, make sure that we fully explore them and that we give them their due time in the spotlight. It means we have a smaller team that is viscerally connected with each other. Communication is easier than ever as a result. It means that if we succeed the team that helped ensure the success can succeed. Success doesn’t mean you hire more and more and ultimately no one really wins. Everything we do is filtered through an understanding of the impact on the environment. Whether it’s organic and sustainable materials, how we ship, or from where we produce. It’s a way of thinking that has evolved over time and is here to stay.

What advice would you give to a young person just starting out hoping to make his or her mark in the fashion industry?
I would say to get experience—life experience. Treat your everyday as an opportunity to learn. At Tibi, I constantly dig into my well of experience at Amex and Ogilvy, but equally so, I dig into my experiences from when I was younger cashiering at the pharmacy, bagging groceries at Kroger, waitressing at DaVinci’s pizza restaurant and working at Cloister Collections clothing boutique on Saint Simmons.

Learning how to work with a wide range of people, how they interact with money, how they handle customer service, all of that gets banked into your experiences you will pull on in your career.
Far too many people I speak with bifurcate their life. They see ‘right now’ as earning money for the business they will start and then their ‘real life‘ will begin. Your real life is happening right now, pay attention, learn and use it. This is the foundation for starting your business. You won’t find how to interact with a customer whom you have given the wrong pizza.

Tell us about your weekly Style Class which goes Live on Instagram at 2:00pm every Wednesday. How did you come up with this idea?
It’s about as organic and authentic as it gets. It was born of Dione (Tibi’s Styling Director) and I wanting a way to connect with each other in the pandemic, and then wanting to connect with customers. It was just a super craving to just talk about anything other than the pandemic. If you start watching from the beginning you can see how it evolved. There was never, and still is not, a “master plan”. We take it week-by-week. The shows content and ideas are conceived of on Sunday's, when Dione and I are engaging with Instagram with questions from followers and ultimately someone’s question triggers an idea for the topic of the next show, and we go from there.

Where do you see the Tibi brand going in the future?
In my perfect world, we are pretty similar to what we are right now: a small team working hard but with purpose, constantly inspired, but rewarded for the efforts out in. I have to be honest, over the last many years, there just simply was not the reward. This industry has been predicated on a scale of fail mentality. I think we have found the formula to break through that dangerous concept. We don’t have to be everything to everyone. We don’t have to make every sale. We don’t have to make the highest margin cheapest product to grow. I don’t want any part of that world. I want the satisfaction of being creatively inspired by great people around me making items we really love and are proud of and that people can really survive, thrive, by doing that. I don’t need a team of 90 to do that; small is good and I want to embrace that.

Interview by Alison Hernon, Editor-In-Chief, PhotoBook Magazine
Sarah Tota, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Destina Marotta, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine

Tibi

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