That project is Emote — “It’s Tome backwards, with an extra ‘e’”, says Lobo—a living, breathing orchestration of clothes fueled by wanderlust in collaboration with artisans around the world: easy dresses, tunics and shorts of his own design mixed with vintage Lanvin, YSL, and Christian Dior Monsieur jackets retailored and cut down, pants and scarves made from silks sourced in Florence, and jaunty block-striped shirting upcycled from a deadstock batch he found in Paros, with everything released in slow-drip drops rather than in collections. Nothing costs more than $800, but plenty of pieces, most in fact, are priced well below that. Emote is dedicated to the idea of what happens when a designer stops thinking about fashion and turns instead to life.

That Emote provides a, well, emotional connection to its offerings is in part because it evokes a sense of memory, the feeling of clothes we always love and return to and wear forever, most usually on vacation. “The precious things that you collect along the way that perhaps weren’t expensive or investment pieces,” says Lobo. “Something you bought on a beach in Oaxaca, or visiting Athens, and which has become part of your style vernacular." Perhaps that’s when, away from the pressured existence in towns and cities, we’re more forgiving of aging and imperfection and wear with our clothes. Emote holds no truck with status or showiness.