I’m having an existential crisis (one of many), and it involves capri pants. Supposedly, they’re in – at least if you trust the latest photos of Bella Hadid – but are they for me?
Speaking of the supermodel, should I also be rushing to the optometrist for skinny, black-framed glasses, the kind my editor calls “Gen Z office siren” specs? And how about mesh ballet flats? I tried a pair, and my feet looked like a Christmas ham, studded with rhinestones.
What do you do when the current silhouette or “it” garment (hello, barrel-leg jeans!) doesn’t suit you? And what is that icky feeling when you jam your body – and taste – into a niche that doesn’t really fit?
Lucky for me, I can ask Amy Smilovic, the founder of New York-based brand Tibi and inventor of “creative pragmatism”, a style manifesto that seemingly eschews trends and leans heavily into acronyms, like CMC – Smilovic’s shorthand for “chill, modern, classic”, if you’re into three-word style codes. And WOFs, also known as “without fails” – the pieces that will never let you down.
Bella Hadid, genetically blessed model and setter of challenging trends, such as skinny glasses (left) and capri pants.Credit: Getty
I’m expecting Smilovic, who is visiting Australia this month for the first time in 25 years, to tell me to ignore the trends. So, I am somewhat surprised when she sends this missive from Paris, where she has just wrapped a run of meetings during fashion week (Tibi showed its spring-summer 2025 collection in New York last month).
“We often say to try it; one of Tibi’s three pillars is modernity,” she begins. “Something should cause you friction, not sit right immediately, until the eye adjusts – that’s how we evolve as humans. If we always choose familiar, then we tend to stay put.”
Knowing which trends are right for you, though, takes practice. Watching Smilovic’s online tutorials, which the once-shy founder started making during the pandemic, also helps. Challenging the myth of the designer who sits in an ivory tower, Smilovic is all over Instagram, TikTok and Substack, and her fashion philosophy has spawned a book, The Creative Pragmatist, billed as a bible for modern dressing, second edition of which will be out next year.
Wearing mesh ballet flats left me cold, like a sparkling leftover ham, brought to life with the help of AI.Credit: Getty/iStock
The content arm of the business has grown so much that Smilovic, who is in her mid-50s, now describes Tibi as “a media company with a fashion line attached”, rather than the other way around. And the strategy seems to be working.
Where other fashion brands are faltering, 27-year-old Tibi’s annual turnover is $US60 million ($88.3 million). And that’s without selling through department stores, which Smilovic abandoned for smaller stockists that “get” the Tibi universe. (In Australia, Tibi is exclusively sold at Grace Melbourne, which has two stores. It was previously stocked at David Jones.)
So, what exactly is a creative pragmatist? “Their feet are grounded, they have stuff to do, they are busy people, they walk really fast, but they are highly creative individuals who appreciate art and creativity and the world around them,” she says.
She thinks her brand of personal style advice resonates with women who are tired of being talked down to and are frustrated by the style “traps” laid by an industry that latches onto microcosmic details, and declares them The Next Big Thing.
“When you have the top US magazine telling you what Kendall Jenner ate for breakfast and put on her feet – it’s not that the people who follow me get sucked in [to buying it] ... they just think, ‘Is this how lowly you think of me?’” she says.
Amy Smilovic (centre) and examples of creative pragmatism on the Tibi runway in New York.Credit: Getty/Supplied
Another one of her style hacks is “antonym dressing”, a method for using opposites to balance an outfit that feels off. For instance, if a dress and ballet flats makes the wearer feel too “pretty”, then add something “edgy”, such as an oversized blazer or leather jacket.
Smilovic thinks one of the keys to Tibi’s success is that consumers appreciate her philosophical approach to dressing, irrespective of whether they buy the clothes. “It is so interesting to me that thinking about your clothing in a much deeper, introspective way has led to thinking about other things in life with that same level of interest and thought,” she says.
She encourages more daring, albeit calculated, choices once the basics are mastered. She likens it to only attempting a top-spin in tennis, her preferred sport, once a player has a strong forehand.
“When people call and say how life-changing [creative pragmatism] is ... [what they mean] is they can go buy a very weird, bright-green mink scarf because they know where it belongs in their wardrobe, and it doesn’t create chaos.”
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