Back when women used to get their colors done, there were certain shades you simply could not wear. In 2017, the opposite is true: Every color is fair game! In fact, it’s the superbright, slightly weird colors that are moving the needle right now, regardless of how they look with your skin tone or hair. At the Spring ’17 shows, we saw neons, primaries, and every shade of pink; even Amy Smilovic, who typically favors neutrals in her Tibi collections, closed her show with a parade of dresses in fresh aqua, lemon, and orange. For Pre-Fall, she took it a step further with offbeat color combinations—think: cotton candy pink with brown, canary yellow with cobalt, teal with apricot. “Unsettling,” yet enticing was how Smilovic described the mash-ups, but they looked a little ’80s, too.
Also quite ’80s: the boxy suits in gray plaid and salmon pink. The Working Girl vibe extended to the lookbook, which was shot in a Financial District office complete with file cabinets and scattered form papers. In 2017, the women of corporate America are still fairly stuck in a regimented uniform of skirtsuits and blouses—pants remain taboo at many companies. How much fun would it be to wear Tibi’s racing-stripe trousers in the boardroom?
For after-hours—or offices with a more relaxed dress code—there were also lots of pretty long-sleeved dresses in draped silk and comfy jersey. Smilovic joked that she used to hate long-sleeved dresses because they felt matronly; who would have guessed that we’d be so obsessed with sleeves in 2017? She pointed out her favorite: a graphic leopard dress with ruched sleeves and a belted waist. Even if animal prints and Crayola colors aren’t your thing, that waistline was an important takeaway—shapeless is out, and a defined waist is very much in.
