Tibi Tropical Wool Liam Blazer

Tropical wool is a real and old term. It describes a worsted woven open and light, with high-twist yarns and air deliberately left between them, made for wearing tailoring in heat. Tibi’s tropical wool is the idea rather than the literal cloth: fifty-three percent polyester, forty-three percent wool, and four percent elastane, engineered to behave the way a summer worsted behaves while adding two things a summer worsted cannot offer. The first is recovery. Elastane is why a jacket cut this cleanly can be sat down in all day and not carry the evidence, and it is why the shoulder and sleeve can be drafted close without becoming a garment you take off at lunch. The second is durability, which is the unglamorous half: a genuine open worsted at this weight is fragile, and this is not. What you get is the Liam, the blazer the house builds everything else around, in the version that has no season attached to it. It is impeccably made and completely unremarkable in outline, and that is the entire brief. A blazer you reach for without deciding anything has to look like nothing in particular.

Why we selected it

Tibi is one of the houses we build outfits around rather than accent them with, and this is the piece that does most of that work. Someone who owns one of these ends up wearing it over almost everything else they own, including things bought from other designers entirely.

Founded in 1997 by Amy Smilovic, Tibi cuts the Liam blazer in a new cloth most seasons, and the tropical wool is the one that stays in the line.

Materials and construction

Fifty-three percent polyester, forty-three percent wool, and four percent elastane, in the house’s tropical wool suiting, which is a recycled blend. Made in China. Black. Lined in sixty percent cupro and forty percent cotton.

Fit notes

Tailored close through the shoulder and body with the elastane giving it movement rather than ease, so it follows the frame and returns rather than hanging away. It takes a shirt or a fine knit underneath and nothing thicker. The cloth is stable enough that the size that is right on the shoulder is the size, and it will not relax into a larger jacket with wear the way a pure wool will.

Styling

With the Tropical Wool Maxi Skirt, which is the same cloth and makes a suit without the flatness of a matched one. Over the Alec Jean, which is the version most days actually call for. Over the Slip Cami and the Slip Skirt when it should read softer.

Care

A jacket blending wool with polyester and elastane cannot take heat, since the elastane loses its recovery permanently and a hot press will glaze the polyester. The cupro lining is the other reason to be careful: cupro is a regenerated cellulosic, cool against the skin and the reason a jacket like this breathes, and it is also the part of a lining that shrinks if it is washed. Dry clean, and press cool if at all. Our care guidance covers wool, it explains the lining question and cupro specifically, and it covers what to do when a garment is more than one material.

Related pieces

The same cloth also makes the Tropical Wool Maxi Skirt and the Tropical Wool Convertible Overall Skirt. For the same model in cashmere, the Cashmere Suiting Liam Blazer, and for a sharper line, the Cavalier Twill Shrunken Blazer. Layering With Tibi is the Library post that puts these together, and everything we currently hold from Tibi is listed together.