Between Us: The Fashion Philosophy Of Tra Di Noi By B

Many aspiring designers want to leave their mark in the fashion world, but the ones that make the most impact are the ones that bring forward not only craftsmanship and a keen eye, but also the ones that can imbue it with a personal perspective, a sense of lived-in character.

That’s where tra Di noi by b operates. Founded by Mexican-born art director and stylist Balbina De Silva, the brand offers a space that seeks to bring back forward vintage, not as a point of reference or contrast but as an ongoing dialogue across different eras.

The Founder’s Early Notions Of Aesthetic

Long before founding tra Di noi, De Silva was already building a sense of aesthetic in Monterrey, where she grew up surrounded by women who treated fashion as an extension of identity. She recalls pulling pieces from her grandmother’s and mother’s wardrobes, drawn instinctively to the silhouettes and craftsmanship of earlier decades. “Ever since I can remember, it’s how I communicate who I am and how I feel,” she recalls. “It’s never been about material things but about connection.”

When she moved to New York at seventeen to study Communication Design and Integrated Design, she carried that sensibility with her. Her studies sharpened her instincts into skill, grounding her eye for color and composition in the technical language of visual storytelling.

De Silva’s early career placed her inside the digital and creative teams of a popular luxury sportswear brand and later an upscale jewelry brand. These years offered a view into how brands construct narratives, how products are in part shaped by the images, interfaces, and atmospheres around them.

Through it all, vintage remained her private thread. She continued collecting, mainly out of an impulse to document the intersections between era, material, and attitude — a foundation that’d later inform every element of her brand.

The Final Unfolding Of Her Creative Identity

Leaving the structure of corporate design for the more dynamic lane of freelance work was an important mindset shift in De Silva’s career. The move gave her more room to work across art direction, styling, and digital production, where she could show off the varied influences she had been collecting for years. Her early styling assignments grew straightforwardly from then on, including working with popular content creators, which eventually led to working with many brands across New York and Mexico.

Freelancing also clarified the range of what she could design outside a strict job description. It required a new level of discipline, but it allowed her to operate based on pure instinct. As she explains, “Going from working full-time in a corporate job to being freelance — that unleashed my creative essence.”

Over time, her long-standing habit of sourcing vintage began blending more and more into her professional output, slowly creating within her the need for a dedicated home for the pieces she had gathered.

That clarity set the groundwork for the brand she would eventually name tra Di noi.

The Making Of Tra Di Noi By B

Tra Di noi, a phrase that translates to “between us” in Italian, takes its name from De Silva’s belief that fashion gains meaning through exchange. She launched the brand with a self-built website and visual identity, establishing it at a moment when New York’s vintage landscape was expanding quickly and scrappy collaborative networks were becoming more prevalent within that scene.

At its core, the brand functions as a place where garments circulate between past and present, designer and wearer, stylist and subject. De Silva says this dynamic is effectively the foundation of her work, noting, “I truly believe fashion is an exchange between people. Whether it’s a piece or the person wearing the piece — that means nothing without the exchange between the two.” In practice, the showroom acts as both a pull destination for stylists and a research source for brands wanting to get references for new collections.

In preparation for the first release, De Silva spent months sourcing across Europe to assemble a collection with enough depth to introduce the brand’s sensibility. She photographed the inaugural edit with collaborators from her own circle, giving the early campaign the same personal, community-driven tone that still defines the brand today.

Running tra Di noi by b now demands of her that same measured instinct. De Silva maintains a clear aesthetic through pieces that aim to follow classic notions of aesthetic with subtle but pointed deviations, a style she dubs “elegant but sexy.” Color is a driving force in her selections, along with texture, construction, and the uniqueness of a garment’s composition. This keeps the collection focused and credible, working with dedicated vintage clients but also broader design teams who treat the showroom as a working archive.

Recognition, Momentum, And What Comes Next

Since its launch, tra Di noi by B has quickly moved from a quiet insider project to a resource recognized by major stylists. Celebrity placements signaled that De Silva’s archive was making waves among fashion connoisseurs, not just among vintage loyalists.

De Silva intends to continue running the showroom alongside her ongoing freelance roles with Dezso and her work with stylists like Erin Walsh. She also hopes to grow the brand’s footprint in consulting and creative direction, noting, “I see tra Di noi with different umbrellas: vintage curation, creative direction, and styling.”

Each planned expansion is meant to be another facet of the same core sensibility: a disciplined, instinct-driven way of fashion that honors the old and fuses it with the new. For Balbina De Silva, that through line continues to guide tra Di noi by b as it grows, leading her vision forward while pushing steadily toward what comes next.

BDG Media newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.