It’s Easter morning, and my “remember” pic that popped up is this. Let me tell you about “this.” Every spring, my parents would come in town for a couple of weeks. They would tell my boys “we can do anything you want.”

There was a local outdoor furniture store in town, on a busy street, called “Patios.com”

And all my kids wanted to do with my parents was visit the store, and try out the lounges. This, this was life. The good life. And my parents obliged. No cost, minimal travel. And a willingness to maybe endure some strange glances and a confused store manager.

Fully content, my dad chilling with the boys on the side of a busy street in a lot filled with patio chairs for sale. This wasn’t something that occurred because they were shopping for chairs, this was the intent of the visit. Charlie looks annoyed here, but only because his grandmother is asking him to smile.

This is what happiness looks like. To me.

Back in 2018, when we had created a job description for head of marketing, a key “soft skill” I needed was someone who fit the bill of a “typical marketing guy.” The one who helps me formulate ideas, then enthusiastically embraces them, then operates in and outside the company networking, greasing palms, you know the type. But shortly after hiring Emeka as our head of marketing, I recognized right away a fellow introvert. In our interviews, I’d misread him as an extrovert; thinking he would complete my puzzle, be the one to do the social side I had found so painful. Instead, I found someone in a constant search for the why. Someone I could have meaningful back and forth conversations, not someone there simply as a backboard for me to hit ideas against. Or worse, simply a sponge to absorb what I say and then go implement. Emeka has a great bullshit sensor, the conversations forced me - admittedly sometimes uncomfortably, to be very honest with situations we were in so we could come up with ideas on how to find our way out.

I’m going to share an excerpt from Almost Reckless, where I talk about a singular moment that really helped shape Tibi’s course forward. And since I am Tibi, this is deeply personal. It was my own path I was building at the same time.

For any entrepreneurs out there, people building teams, the people you surround yourself come together often to form a whole.

Nothing in AI, no LinkedIn profiles can help you articulate how important it is that, in my case, the person you’re hiring has a deep sense of humor.

Or that, when you have an idea to create movie posters around your runway show, and you hire incredible models who JUST AREN’T WORKING because there is no synergy around them, that they’re willing to grab other team members and do it themselves. I remember this day, we’d paid a fortune for two models, only to put them off to the side and have Emeka and a few other team members become the campaign.

I’m sharing this with you all to say, whether it’s in our jobs, our personal lives - if we hold so tightly to the job description (and by now I use this as metaphor) we can often lose the bigger picture of what’s been put in front of us. I’m sure you’ve all been in situations where you’re focusing so hard on what isn’t that you simply don’t see what is. This is what I appreciate so much about being human. We’re all a work in progress. I could never have written the right job description for what I got from Emeka at the time. Sometimes you just don’t know what you need until it appears. It’s why I love things IRL, it’s why I don’t embrace WFH as the norm rather than the exception. It’s why I have faith that AI will play a role but not become the main character.

I also think it’s great when you have these nice surprises in life, that you can say them out loud. So I am.

Rip up the Fashion Industry’s shitty Playbook. Follow it and you’ll end up just like them. And here’s what I mean by that. Can you name one designer brand’s path that you want to emulate? I don’t mean how their stores look, or their designs, or their sales. I mean their path. Are they designing what they love, for people they deeply respect, and doing it facing challenges that some days are just tough as fuck but equally as rewarding when you sort through it. That last part is crazy important. Spending a day working with a team who is intent on solving a problem - with a mutual agreement on what success will look like -is fully different than days spent massaging numbers for investors, prepping for a meeting with a department store that is about to tell you “it’s just not working, and here’s the bill”, or being harassed by a merchandising team explaining that your pant’s are too big, your necklines too low and “the people” just want a fitted stretch jean.

So here are the facts as I see them:

Fact 1: Department Stores are Not For You.

Some of the loveliest people I’ve met in the industry were from the Department Stores (Lisa at Neimans, Trish at Nordstroms, Maria at Harrods). But they’re individuals and ultimately part of giant machine whose fundamental business practices are at odds with an independent designer. And at the end of the day, you’re selling to the giant conglomerate and not Lisa, Trish or Maria. Nothing personal, just facts. Everything you sell them is at consignment, even though you’d swear you’d made an outright sale. If you work with a department store, it has to be on your terms. I don’t mean getting up front payments - that is absolutely not going to happen - if it does you are a serious outlier and you can not plan for this as strategy. Here is an example of what our terms are and what I wish like hell they’d been from the beginning (I learned the hard way):

• You have to be in the store’s area which suits your brand. If they put you with un-aligned brands, then they are establishing your brand’s positioning. You’ll be fucked, I promise. You can not have a strategy to get your foot in the door and perform and then create your own terms. If you perform, you’ll actually give ammunition that you do belong with the brands they put you with. If you don’t, you’re out. See the delimma?

• You have to be the driver of what designs are selected. If you don’t show up as your brand, then your customer will never find you. You’ll attract different customers and eventually you’ll have no idea who you are. Imagine you have this great line up of full, or sculpted pants, but the buyer wants only the one really fitted one you designed because their customers want to look sexy. They want to buy only your more feminine tops, and that one slinky dress you put in that made sense in the bigger context but now with this carved out assortment your collection looks entirely different.

  Think of it this way: I can offer you an incredible French menu, but if you extract the meat, the brioche, and the tomato, you’ve just turned me in to a hamburger joint. The hamburger may be good, but it was not the intent of what you are creating. Do not allow someone to turn you in to fast food.

• Good news, there are some big stores that think small. The French stores are a good example of this - within Printemps 2nd floor we found our home and we have meaning for them. Same with I.T in China, That Concept Store in Dubai.

• If you do choose to work with one because they’ve agreed to your brand positioning, and you believe the exposure is worth it (maybe that’s a Bergdorf’s or a Selfridges that still have foot traffic) then ONLY SELL them what you can afford to lose. Literally, assume you won’t see a dollar back - think of it as an advertising expense. When you are calculating your losses, remember to factor in shipping, penalties for maybe a wrong hanger or label placement on a box, etc. When I was starting out, $10,000 to me was the equivalent of $300k to a mid size brand and $2mm a big brand. It’s all relative - so when seeking advice here it’s good to get it from someone who shares your lens.

Fact 2: Institutional knowledge is everything.

Do everything you can until you can’t. This allows you to make great decisions, sniff out bullshitters who are selling you what you don’t need, or charging you for what they shouldn’t. And importantly you know what you can push for - and the tradeoffs if you don’t get it - because you’ve done it yourself. You’ll become a great problem solver as a result and you’ll start to think you have an amazing gut sense for things when really you just have a solid base of knowledge from which to operate.

When I started, I designed, I worked with the patternmaker, sat at the factory, did the fittings, costed the items, priced the items, created the marketing, set up selling events, sold to the consumer, found trade shows, sold to the stores, visited the stores, received the product, shipped the product, took back the product if it sucked, defended the product when it didn’t suck but when someone else thought it did….all while simultaneously designing the next collection. It was me and my partner at the time, when she left it was me and an employee. What this DID is it allowed me to know, at least on a surface level, every area of the business. Each time I understood an area and the limitations of my knowledge and bandwidth, I could peel it off and give to someone else. Sales, for example. After 8 months I was ready to shed the responsibility. I finally understood what I needed:

• Someone with a rolodex

• Someone who knew the lingo (30 days vs. 60 days net, RTV, etc.)

• A good negotiator who would fight for our brand positioning

• Seriously strong work ethic

To find help, I went first to visit the big showrooms to have them rep my line. But, it didn’t sit right with me that they were repping lots of other lines. How would I get attention? They explained that they will get my foot in the door, they own the premiere Rolodex of relationships. But in my vision I could see one of their sales people showing a top to a store - when the store said they liked it, but prefer blue, the rep said “oh we have another designer doing blue. Follow me over here…” I could see quickly if I was here I would be just a blue top. Or worse, the black one the client didn’t want.

So I called some of the boutiques I had met, asked them for the name of a great salesperson - three stores mentioned the same woman - I called her and hired her. We worked out a salary heavily contingent on sales; we both had skin in the game. One of the best decisions I ever made.

The next best decision? Doing our own shipping. When I speak with young designers it’s one of the first things they say they’re doing but will they’re looking actively to hire a shipping company. I tell them STOP and do the math first. How much are they really shipping out? 3 orders a day? If sales double in 6 months will that be 6 a day? And in a year, if you’re now really rolling, you know how much a package costs to ship - in terms of time and money, how long returns take to process, etc. And like me, you may decide that it makes sense to just hire someone to do your shipping in a really scrappy way (that was my mom) so that you own the customer relationships, so you can ship out quickly when needed, you won’t be charged for sneezing. Hiring someone working from home, we were able to ship out $3mm in annual sales. That person getting a small space and hiring one more person, we could get to $7mm. Getting a 20,000 sqft warehouse in Georgia, hiring a manager and 6 of the most amazing team members ever, we ship out 10x that. And I know all the warehouse team’s names and they watch Love Island in the breakroom at lunch and fill us in on what’s happening between Cierra and Austin. Those are people not cities.

Fact 3: Sell only to customers that share your mindset.

You are reading this because you are small, independent and looking to be able to control your destiny. It’s important that you know your mindset, and work ONLY with those that share it. I don’t mean only those that love your interesting pants you’ve designed. I mean those who value the same things as you do. For example:

• Find customers who believe that small is good, that to be human is best. People who care about the “about” section, and want to support independent designers because all this individuality feels electric and the mega brands and sameness out there is depressing. By just being great, you’ll help them understand that COS is indeed H&M, that luxury materials are luxury because of the 80 year old Italian family business that wove them, that all good things take time and that humans make mistakes. Insist on being treated like a human but commit to doing the same for your customer. It’s a two way street.

• Explain yourself to your customers. Not only do you owe it to them, you owe it to yourself. The more you do it, you’ll sharpen what you stand for - and if you aren’t visibly clear about it, then others won’t be able to see you. Remember, facts are: you are up against giant Fast Fashion houses posing as smaller luxury brands, dupes posing as same for less. Let people know you are not a massive conglomerate that has carved out a tiny segment to appear as thoughtful while churning out the black smoke in the back. And remember, let them know it NOT by saying what I just said, but by just being human and deeply caring about your work.

Fact 4: There is no such thing as an expert - at least in Fashion.

Listening to an expert today is like assuming that Alexander Graham Bell is going to help you figure out why your iphone isn’t working.

Fact 5: Specialty stores have to make money too.

Sherri, Lance, Max, Wendi, Yasemin, Hank, Bo, Laurance - the owners of these stores are human- they have families, they’re invested in their brand just like you; they’re human. Treat them as business partners, do it well, and you’ll get the same in return. They need to be able to sell what you ship them - you have to ship on time, it has to fit consistently (as you’ve determined the fit to be - and it’s your job to be clear about that), you have to promote them. And trust me, that first line - ship on time - that’s a fucking beast right now - everything is being thrown at all of us. So if you’re going to be late, bust your ass to make sure you’re helping them sell. It’s a tough business, that’s the reality, but if you’re both working to a common cause it makes it bearable, and often really fun.

Fact 6: You have to visit the stores yourself - no dms, no emails.

Specialty stores tell me this all the time - they’re inundated with DM’s and emails from new designers. They say designers don’t even call any more, let alone walk in the store, visit, see what their store is about. You have to do this. It’s exhausting but I promise, you will learn so much, relationships matter, and you really can’t try and sell Kickpleat in Austin a satin turquiose stretch mini dress and if you visited her store you’d know why.

Fact 7: Eat only what you kill.

I started with 4 styles. Then 20. Then more. Design, make, sell, collect and then take the funds and do it again. Just a bit more. Each collection you’re learning, refining, and self funding. The businesses that succeed often did it because they had the luxury of a small purse. It forces you to actually sell what you make, figure shit out. If I’d been handed an investor check in year 2, there’s no way I’d have the company I have today: small by any standards in this industry, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Fact 8: Price to make money

You can not compete with fast fashion like COS and Massimo Dutti (or at least the companies who them). You can not compete on scale. And you’re not hiring Bella or Kendall to front your brand. What that means is:

• congrats, you’re authentic, and to a lot of people that means something. Own it and run with it. Explain that your fabric costs $30 a yard, the dress took 3 yards of fabric (thats $90 in fabric costs alone if you show the math), that the workmanship has French seams, wide seam allowances, etc. Prices are expensive enough based on the costs of workmanship and materials; thank goodness you’re not a brand that has to factor in a $2mm runway show and a Hadid campaign model - can you imagine how high you’d have to price your leather jacket with all that branding image spend? Being smaller and independent lets you keep the pricing tethered to the true value you are offering. That’s good.

Fact 10: It’s not fair, never was. Embrace it, this is where good things happen.

Go slow, and make sure that everything you are doing is creative and pragmatic. When you find yourself making decisions that are solely for pragmatic reasons, or creative just for the sake of creativity, STOP. Find the blend of both. Use this as your test for which direction your next step should be. Keep your head down long enough and you ‘ll look up to find you’ve landed in a place truly unique. Your own. And that may not measure up to other brands - but that’s not just ok, it’s exactly the point. Because by now you’ve created your own form of measurement. And this, this is how we’ve measured our success at Tibi. Which makes us wildly successful, according to our terms. Which since were human, at the end of the day, do anyone else’s terms really matter?

Fyi, if you’re interested, Almost Reckless details a lot of this journey with solid tips on how to ignore that algorithm and forge your own path. It’s a good read, promise.

They often took a similar skirt body and showed how it would be accessorized, lengthened or camouflaged as you progress through the years. I don’t blame everyone for having such a mindfuck when it comes to this subject. I blame them. But, alas, blame gets us nowhere - so here we focus on resetting our mind and moving on. Through a series of visuals I’ll show you how as images speak louder than words.

My urgency in writing about this, now, is that I’ve just returned from a trip to San Francisco working with one of my favorite people in the world, Sherri McMullen. We had around 60+ appointments, and if I had to guess the ages ranged from 30-60. And many of them, regardless of where they fell on this age scale, asked me for advice on how think about age appropriateness when getting dressed. And while on the surface, you may believe the idea means something different to everyone depending on their age, there was a clear thru-line when I drilled deeper to the real concern. At first in my probing, I thought I’d found it when “trends” kept being brought up in respect to age. “I don’t want to look like I’m trying to hard, to thirsty, a trend victim.” But if we flip that on its head, we get closer to the real issue, and I’ll summarize it here:

“as I get older, it’s important that I communicate that I know who I am. My personal style is a reflection of that. If one day I am a “mob wife,” an “Italian Maximalist” or a “Coastal Grandmother” then I will project, if to no one but myself, that I don’t know who I am. “

And this clicked and it also crystallized for me why I’ve been not just “meh” but actually annoyed at the Sex and the City’s / “And Just Like That” costuming. And that’s the key word, it became costuming, troping, rather than helping convey the story line, motivations, and a setting of context. A quick visual here, compare and contrast:

The early Carrie, she was given tremendous latitude to experiment. Her outfits conveyed she was deeply curious, opinionated, game for anything. And not ashamed to be figuring it all out, it’s part of life’s process. Each outfit communicated all of these things at once. But the “Now” Carrie became a bad copy of the former Carrie. A literal trope of what it looks like to have way to much funding to recreate exact replicas that never hit the mark. And they miss it because life moves on, the aim is not to recreate exactly what was but it’s in the thrill of figuring out how all that lived life plays in to who we are today. Our better understanding of how we show up as ourselves no matter the environment. Alas, that doesn’t mean a complete disregard to our surroundings. Carrie showing up to a farm to be with Aidan’s kids dressed in 5 inch platforms and satin no longer is about whimsy, it just seems weird she hasn’t figured out how to do “her” in varied situations that call for some - a bit- of understanding/recognition of the terrain/temp/vibe.

While I don’t pretend to have it all figured out, I do stand on far more solid ground than ever. Critical thinking, information, reflection - that will do that for you. Here’s a visual cue to the tropes, the films, the icons that I was too young to have on a Pinterest board but existed in torn out magazine pages or just simply in my memories when I was busy diving in to varied style personas:

It was a mashup, the Preppy Handbook, any John Hughes film, Flashdance, Ally McBeal short mini suits, Kate/Gwyneth/Carolyn, the Donna Karan pantsuit, Plum Sykes from Vogue, Carolyn Murphy and yes, even Carrie by way of the real SJP.

I tried hard for my own interpretations of this growing up. Any that were in my Flashdance /Footloose phase seem buried, and I’m not angry about that.

And so now here I find myself, my older self. And whether you can grab this from photos of me over the years, or in my imaginary younger year’s Pinterest board, the thru-line is there - I can see it in pictures of me now. Chill, Modern, Classic with a twist of humor (in the way of irony, ick, or quite literally).

And this is when you cut down to what it means to dressing your age: it’s about knowing and dressing your style. In other words, yourself. This next visual will help drill this point further. Here’s a recount of a conversation from McMullens:

Person: “You’re wearing the tie-dye jean. But you paired it with a navy sweater, so that it looks more age appropriate, right?”

Me: “no. I paired it with the navy sweater because it now looks like me. Darianne paired it with the striped shirt, I would do that too.”

Person: “But you wouldn’t wear it with a floppy hat and low cut shirt or lots of jewelry, that wouldn’t be age appropriate, right?”

Me: “no. It just wouldn’t be me. Stevie Nicks, she would do that. She’s quite a bit older than me. If you saw her in that, she’d just look like Stevie. At any age”.

Which brings us back full circle now to the original visual. I originally set out to try and “recreate” those visuals from those narrow minded articles about dressing your age. But as I was doing it I realized, I would wear all these things today - but the BIG difference is the where and how it would be styled. I wouldn’t wear the short skirt in my office, it would convey too much of an un-seriousness for me. At least if I was having a meeting that day. And my 20 year old self would have loved the full skirt. I even had an idea to just make the 70+ person ridiculously covered up - but I realized that’s a vibe too - for the right moment.

Now, you see the visuals through a different lens, right?

And we come back to the notion, it’s about dressing like yourself, the one that is tweaked for different environments, activities, or considerations like terrain or culture. Standing out whilst fitting in. Creative, yet pragmatic.

See?

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Tibi Spring 26

The year was 1998, I was interviewed by a NY fashion magazine, and they asked “you’re so bold to show color, how do you convince women to experiment?”

I was thrown by the question. I had recently moved from NYC to Hon…

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1. Like much in life, we are two things at once and it’s all in the balance.

2. And knowing this, you can see how important your…

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Let me start here.

Present day: we started working on our Fall 26 collection last September (25). And a partner from Germany was at our studio and she mentioned that “one can never be a pr…

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Follow me down this rabbit hole please……

“The third-rate mind is only happy when it’s thinking with the majority. A second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. A first-rate …

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So no judgement here with what I’m going to share. This simply “is what it is”, to me. If you feel the same, you feel the same. If you don’t, you don’t. And if you were on the fence, you now have more perspective - or intelligence - depending on how y…

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So how to have range in our closet, express ourselves through myriad colors, and still retain our through line? In other words, how do we make sure we look like “ourselves.” The answer’s not complicated, but it does mean letting go of some singular ways of thinking about what color represents. Through the ages, magazines and books on style, have labeled style through either/ors. If you wear colors in ring Ring 1/2, you are an urban minimalist, Ring 3? That’s for the zen masters, yoga matt in tow. And Ring 4, you are fun and girly or the exuberant socialite.

The source of frustration in your closet, or when shopping, has not been driven by lack of choice. Rather, it’s been a bit of a mind fuck undoing what you’ve learned, understanding who you are, and how to articulate that visually through your personal style. You know that being “boxed” into certain tropes is incredibly frustrating, it handicaps creativity and your ability to express yourself without being labeled as chaotic and all over the place (even if it’s just you doing the labeling).

The friction I had experienced in knowing that I crave the stability of classic neutral colors (1/2’s), and the softness of those hard to define ones (3’s) and the excitement of the (4’s) was frustrating. I rejected the notion that I had to pick a lane and stay in it, but at the same time, I often found myself veering in to head on traffic with some of my choices. Not because they were “wrong” visually. By any objective standard, the “outfits” I put together were good. But they didn’t feel right because I simply did not feel like me when wearing them. It wasn’t until a few years ago I started thinking critically about style and that freed me to question question the accepted truisms, debate the logic and evaluate what made sense for me in the context of being a Creative Pragmatist. I suppose it’s why when I created the color wheel (P. 136 in The Creative Pragmatist Book was literally a wheel. Meant to be spun around, moving from ring to ring, with no clear path of right or wrong but simply to help give an understanding of what the different combinations will yield.

Understanding the role color can play to help you lean in to the way you feel can help you think more critically about what you are feeling and how you want to communicate that through your style. When you understand your intent, and are able to convey it visually, it gives you a sense of calm, the calm that comes when you are quite sure of yourself.

Rather than fall for the tropes, the hardcore minimalist, the zenmaster, the extremist, just try mixing up the rings a bit more - adding an “y, light, or an ish” to anything that becomes too one dimensional.

I’m going to give examples of how mixing different rings on the wheel yields different results. I’ll start simple here, showing how one jacket in a ring 3 color can take on different vibes depending on the combination of rings.

I’ll break down the range of emotions I’ve drawn above:

A: Confident and creative. Maybe this is a more casual day in the office. The heel and the jacket has you squarely put together, mixing the ring 3 colored tee feels thoughtful but not over wrought, and the pink sweater makes you feel a bit happy. The ring 4 sweater balanced with the ring 3 and 2 colors, gives that pink sweater a bit of sophistication.

B: Comfortable but refined. You’re boarding the plane. The white tee keeps everything sharp, casual but put together. The high contrast between the blazer, the tee and the knit has you feeling focused - when you’ve got a long flight ahead, you want to somehow feel fresh and crisp but not strictly confined or overly fashioned out.

C: Weekend effortless but with style. Just hanging, running errands, put together but the literal definition of chillful haphazardnous that all of these ring 2’s piled on convey. That sort of “I just got dressed with the lights off and this all came together” ease.

The illusive Ring 3 is often the glue that pulls together a closet by creating a through line between the rings on the wheel. The daft mixture of Ring 3 allows someone who is arguably chill, modern and classic to retain their sense of personal style whilst mixing in bright colors, strong bold tights, and just creative experimentation.

A: The muted but defined color of the draped shirt softens the bright mint sweater and is simply the non-obvious choice that gives an outfit depth.

B: The hard to define sweater color tempers a blazing set of beads, lending sophistication and the good but not jarring contrast to the rich dark neutrals.

C: The bold red sock is balanced out when mixed with the cementy-grey-tannish-brown. Of course we would love the red sock with a navy skirt and sweater too- but you can envision that that would create an entirely different vibe. Not a wrong or right vibe, just a different one.

Here’s a cheat to know if a color is a Ring 3-er. They’re hard to say in one word. We debate them with friends - is it really brown? More red maybe? Possibly a bit purply??? Ring 2 colors can usually be pinpointed straight away: navy. White. Khaki. Grey. Same with the brights or pastels of Ring 4. Fuschia. Lime. Mint. Turquoise. The Ring 3-er’s trip up the tongue a bit.

I know from speaking with so many of you know that many issues with building your personal style emanate from the colors in the closet. Most people have a closet weighted down by either Ring 1/2’s or Ring 4’s. In an effort to expand, balance the scale, they bring in the color ring at the opposite of the spectrum. The thinking being they’ll “brighten” up all the darks and neturals in the closet by adding Ring 4’s and vice versa.

But when you add in the Ring 3 colors, it becomes the glue that brings all the colors together opening up a new range of vibes.

A: The soft purply grey wool jersey lightens up and adds dimension to a a full ring 2 Navy suit.

B: An effortless jersey polo dress gets toughened up and made emphatically urban by mixing in the strength of Ring 2 neutrals and quirky Ring 4 brights.

C: All the bright clothing you’ve invested in have new life and wearability beyond when you’re feeling for something simply happy and creative. Ring 3 settles those colors down extending the wearing options immensely.

Keep the colorwheel near the closet, it will help keep you on point. Practice makes perfect. Which is actually something I don’t believe in. I’ll reword this to say: practice gives you confidence to plow forth and make mistakes and not care because it’s how you experiment and learn and often find they weren’t mistakes afterall. See?

I talk so much here about personal style - connecting your visuals with who you are on the inside. When the connection isn’t there, you can feel unstable - that’s my experience, anyways. But the process of unpacking it all, d…

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If I was going to a meeting I’d pin up the longest ribbon so it doesn’t confuse my head where I’m going. I’d go for ring 1+2’s from the Tibi colorwheel. I’d throw on brogues to double down on the meeting vibe, I’d tie a sweater at my waist to give ease,…

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First, let me start by saying that “big” is relative. But then again, everything in life is. And big is not always better. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to dine on roast chicken in France, you now this to be tru…

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I want to share a story with you. It is starting to feel very familiar to me, but it doesn’t get old because each time it makes me think. And it makes me so very grateful for the direction life has taken me here, as the Founder and Creative Director of Tibi.

On my last night in Paris, my son and I were sitting at a small table for two at our favorite restaurant L’as Du Fallafel. We were in the back, the original side of the restaurant, centered in the middle. A woman sat alone at the table directly to my left, dressed in a burgundy-ish fleece pullover, wearing jeans I think, and a very functional shoe for walking. She made eye contact, we did as well, but we were exhausted after ten days of traveling between London and Paris Fashion Week. I just wanted to eat my falafel.

“Do you come here often?” She asked. “Yes.” I replied, reverting my eyes back to the sticky menu.

“This is my first time, do you live in Paris? “No” I replied, as I looked to the waiter and told him I would have the special falafel sandwich in an accent courtesy of Duolingo and which no one in Paris recognizes as anything resembling French.

She persisted the conversation, and I and my son are better for it. She told us she was visiting from Colorado and had moved to the U.S. only 10 years ago from Iraq. Her father fought in the Iraqi army, and this was the first time she had been to Paris. She had always heard about the Marais and she wanted to explore the area, her religious roots, and experience true Paris. She explained that she is a doctor and that many people in Colorado ask her the same questions that I immediately did, about her experiences in Iraq and how she grapples with her feelings towards her new country. She told me wherever she goes, the reality is she meets people, often really good people and that is where she focuses and takes console.

She asked “what do you do for a living?”

I told her I have a clothing brand, called Tibi, that I started over 27 years ago and that we show the collection to our global stores each season in Paris.

She asked me “what is the philosophy behind my designs?”

Hmm… that’s not the usual question I get from an individual - the press yes, people not so much. I answered:

“I think it’s incredibly important that your visual style match who you are on the inside. And that when those two are opposed to each other, it creates angst and conflict. It is often the source of tension and when people realize where it’s coming from, and they learn they can rectify that, it is consoling, and I hope my clothing and what we do every day helps people.”

And she started crying.

This woman who was a complete stranger moments ago was crying because of what I said and so we hugged. She said this hit so hard, that she had not been able to express who she was in Colorado, and that being here in Paris reminded her that this was a part of her, and that she needed to not be dressed like someone else. She said she had gone to an H&M earlier that day in an attempt to find herself but left overwhelmed and disheartened. She said that growing up, her mother and sister loved fashion so much, they were so chic but that she had somehow been conditioned to think it so superficial. She needed to hear that it was ok, that looking like yourself is intrinsically connected to feeling like yourself and being able to express who you are to others just simply, well, it makes sense that that’s important.

She offered to share her mint lemonade with me, we talked more and we left. I hope she DM’s me and I hope I have not revealed too much here about her identity and breached an unspoken trust.

I think about this exchange and how important this and similar moments have become. As an introvert, the industry I signed up for always left me feeling a bit sick even though it may appear to some I’m enjoying skating the surface in a superficial conversation about whether Slimane will go to Chanel (I don’t care) or whether Bohemian will be a raging trend (I super don’t care). My reality is, I prefer these real and personal conversations every time, and prior to 2020, they were far and few between. Of course I would meet people with whom exuded a realness and I could talk for hours. And likely many of those who I found unbearable in my industry are perhaps assuming the same as me, and we skate on the surface thinking that neither has interest in diving below.

No matter, I know that when my son witnesses these conversations as he has so often now- with random individuals or customers - that he is filled with a sense of purpose that I could never realize in my first two decades of business.

I love what I do now, and I see it amongst our team as well. Now is different. I’m so glad to have one toe in my industry, and the rest of my body fully planted in this other, far meaningful, world.

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