Tibi Cashmere Suiting Liam Blazer

The Liam is the blazer Tibi returns to, recut season after season in whatever cloth the house is thinking about. Which cloth it is changes the garment more than the pattern does. Worsted suiting has memory. It takes a pressed edge, holds it, and gives a tailor something to argue with, which is why almost all tailoring is built on it. Cashmere has very little memory at all. Woven as a flannel rather than a worsted, it will not hold a crease and it will not stand away from the body, so a cashmere blazer cannot be made by the usual method of imposing a shape and trusting the cloth to keep it. It has to be drafted so that falling is the intention. That is what the relaxed silhouette here is doing, and it is why the lapels are as wide as they are: a wide lapel in a soft cloth rolls rather than folds, and the roll is the line you actually see. The result reads as tailoring from across a street and behaves like a cardigan once it is on. It is one of the house’s Without Fail pieces, the term Tibi uses for what a wardrobe is built around rather than what passes through it.

Why we selected it

We wanted the version of this blazer that answers the question of what it is for. Most people already own a jacket that photographs well and is resented by four o’clock. This is the one that gets worn on days that did not require a jacket, which is the only honest argument for owning it.

Tibi was founded in 1997 by Amy Smilovic, and the Liam is the blazer the rest of her tailoring is measured against.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent cashmere, woven as an Italian suiting flannel. Relaxed silhouette with wide lapels. Black.

Fit notes

Cut easy through the body, so it takes a knit underneath without crowding and can be worn open without collapsing. A soft-drafted jacket is more forgiving than a structured one across the chest and less forgiving at the shoulder, since there is nothing inside correcting the line. Worth trying on rather than guessing at. Cashmere relaxes across a day of wear and recovers when it rests, so a jacket that feels exact in the morning and generous by evening is behaving as it should.

Styling

Over the Slip Cami and the Slip Skirt, which is the softest reading of it. Over the Alec Jean for the version most people will actually wear. With the Sculpted Cotton Long Sleeve Top when you want something firm underneath something soft.

Care

Cashmere wants brushing and airing far more than it wants cleaning, and a soft-tailored jacket loses its roll to a bad pressing faster than to anything else. Hang it shaped, air it after wearing, and take it to a cleaner who is told it is cashmere and not worsted. Our care guidance covers cashmere in more detail.

Related pieces

The same model in a cloth with no season attached is the Tropical Wool Liam Blazer. For a sharper and shorter line, the Cavalier Twill Shrunken Blazer. It sits cleanly over the Grain De Poudre pleated skirt. Everything we currently hold from Tibi is listed together.