The Motel T by Tibi Creative Lab
August 12, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. on Tibi.com
The Motel T is our fourth t-shirt from the Tibi Creative Lab and it is, like all others, a special one. We can say this, that they are all special, because we have the capacity to only make so many, and because a new shirt only arrives in tandem with the commemoration or remembrance of a special occasion - in this case, it’s about the summer time.
The Tibi Creative lab is, well, Tibi’s creative lab. It is where we produce projects that don’t quite seem to fit so perfectly into the main Tibi world of designer clothing. It’s where we test campaigns that are not yet ready for print. It’s where we connect with a smaller, perhaps deeper, subsect of the Tibi community through art, media, and the occasional t-shirt drop. It’s where we launch our CP Radio playlists and Tibi Close Friends collaborations, where we promote our Tibi Eats and travel articles, where we premier behind the scenes documentaries, and much more.
Our TCL tees are an extension of all these raw, creative, and personal pieces of the Tibi brand, and the Motel T is no different - inspired by our Summer 2026 collection, a season of which we are still in the throes, the dog days if you will. The “Summer's What You Make It” campaign is an exploration of the nostalgia that summertime brings through the hidden meaning that lies within everyday objects, places, and memories - road trips to a Holiday Inn in the brown station wagon, poolside coca-colas on a vinyl webbed lounge chair, and the lasting waffle imprint that’s left on one’s legs after a proper parking lot session in the sun. We all have our version of these memories, signifiers of relaxation, calm, or simpler times, and we hope the Motel T may serve as a reminder of these times, good times.
Dayu, our Junior Art Director, designed and constructed a real-life Motel Tibi sign that was used for one of the sets of our Summer 2026 campaign, and the second we saw it we knew we had a special t-shirt coming. As our previous tees have been white, the colors of the Motel T are unique departure from the norm for the Tibi Creative Lab, but deeply important to evoking the feeling of a 70s era, American summer experience. We took Dayu’s design, originally colored in Tibi green, made it a calm, buttercup yellow (ring 4), and screen-printed it onto a warm, custom-pigmented 100% cotton tee in brown. These tees took a bit longer to produce than usual because of the care with which our family producers in Peru took in sourcing the proper brown pigment, which was then used to dye our raw cotton on site at their small factory. The back of the tee features a special summertime edition of the TCL logo, designed with Motel Tibi in mind - an ode to the classic Americana signage of the era of reference.
There is currently no vacancy at Motel Tibi… but in the meantime we hope these shirts may hold you over. We only have 90 tees, and they will be available for purchase tomorrow, August 12, at 11:00 a.m. on Tibi.com.