Smilja Mihailovich

White cotton, lace and crochet, loose and light, worn with espadrilles under the Mediterranean sun: Adlib is Ibiza’s own fashion, and for half a century it has been the island’s signature look. Its great champion was a woman as colourful as the clothes were white, the Serbian-born Smilja Mihailovich, who styled herself a princess.

A princess on the island

Ibiza’s press remembers her as a Serbian, or Yugoslav, princess, though the title itself was always disputed. She arrived on Ibiza in the early 1970s, in the years when the hippie movement had brought a new, free way of dressing to the island.

Juan Suárez, who has written the history of Adlib, calls her an enigmatic figure, at times loved and at times hated. Whatever people made of her, nobody doubts what she did for the island’s fashion.

The birth of Adlib

The name comes from the Latin ad libitum, “at pleasure” or “freely”. The style grew from two sources: the white petticoats Ibizan country women wore beneath their traditional dress, and the free, loose clothes of the hippies who came to the island in the 1960s and 1970s.

Smilja gave it a name, a stage and a motto. FashionUnited dates the movement to 1972 and her arrival on the island, while Ibiza’s press also dates her promotion of it to 1971. Its slogan, “Vístete como quieras, pero con estilo”, dress as you like but with style, still sums it up.

Madrid, Paris and the world

She took Adlib far beyond the island, presenting it to ministries of culture and tourism and to the great department stores of the day, Galerías Preciados in Madrid and the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, and she encouraged Ibiza’s boutiques to show at international fairs.

“An enigmatic figure, at times so loved and so hated.” Juan Suárez, author of Adlib 50+, on Smilja Mihailovich

The look

Adlib is almost always white. It is made in natural fabrics, cotton above all, with linen, gauze and silk, and finished by hand with embroidery, bobbin lace, crochet, frills and fringe. Dresses are long and loose, and they are never worn with heels.

Adlib today

After her death, the island kept her creation alive. The Pasarela Adlib, organised by the Consell Insular d’Eivissa, returns every summer; its 40th edition in 2012 was staged as a white party at the Ushuaïa, and today some fourteen designers and brands make up Adlib Ibiza.

In 2025 the Consell published Adlib 50+, a 315-page history by the journalist Juan Suárez, presented at the Teatro Pereyra in Ibiza Town, with chapters on the designers, the models, the shows and the people who made Adlib.

Our advice: plan a June visit to catch the Pasarela Adlib, then look for the Adlib designers’ labels in the boutiques of Ibiza Town, and browse the market at Las Dalias on the Sant Carles road. Check the date of the Pasarela before you go.