CFDA’s FASHION’S NIGHT OUT & Amy Smilovic’s TIBI spring 2010 Collection

TEXT, VIVIAN G. KELLY
Images courtesy of Getty Images

FASHION’S NIGHT OUT
WE were recently reflecting on the success of Fashion’s Night Out way back on September 10th. The big question, akin to the proverbial “elephant in the room” is, WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS? It’s the question that many industry insiders are wanting an answer to. On the one hand, it was a good public relations initiative/stunt on Anna Wintour’s part. When ELSE would you find fashion’s longtime queen in Queens, at a Macy’s no less?
We’re eagerly waiting for Vogue Publisher, Thomas A. Florio, to trumpet out the amazing numbers the event chalked up in the cities around the USA and the rest of the world. Stay tuned.

This brings us to TIBI. We’ve loved Amy and her Lilly meets cool downtown girl line since a former employee of Laforce & Stevens introduced us to the then capsule collection @ 10 years ago. We’ve watched it grow and have enjoyed her successful entry into the swim market. Because of Tibi, we’ve fallen in love with caftans all over again as have many other women, from size 2-12 that snap them up as soon as they’re available.
Nonetheless, we didn’t brave the melee on Madison Avenue after getting a taste of the goings-on downtown. On our way back uptown to get some R&R after a long day on our feet, we noted that “the girls” were out in force – that is they were dressed-up and hitting the events but we saw very few bags ie: evidence of actual purchases.

While it would have been fun to see Charlize Theron in person over at Dior Uptown, it was more of a thrill to sit and watch the TIBI show 5 days later, Tuesday, September 15 at 7pm.

THE TIBI SPRING 2010 COLLECTION
Mid-way through, by outfit #14 of 3, we concurred with our seatmates that thus was the strongest TIBI RTW collection we’d seen yet.
We were initially thrown by the “Linda, Naomi, Christy” reference in the program notes. Once the “Naomi” one shoulder beaded dress came-out, we got it.
Pre-show, backstage, Amy said, “What’ I’m excited about is that I decided not to merchandise it [s/s’10 collection]. No black dresses, we need to feel good.”
The colorful collection captured the fun loving spirit of the eighties, when it was just fine to wear bright splashes of color and beading was considered de rigueur rather than tacky. As far as the early nineties reference – we haven’t seen this many slip dresses – long and short, since the days of Minimalism. As Grace Mirabella used to say, it looked “just great!”