In honor of my 25th birthday week, I wanted to write about gift giving. It’s my love language. I love thinking about the person I’m giving to. I love sitting with our old memories and our inside jokes, their death row meal, their go-to getting ready song, and the various little things that make them come alive. I love taking a few extra minutes to write them a card in cursive. I love the smile on their face when they peel back paper I chose and wrapped just for them. Nothing feels better than making someone feel special and thought of, even for a moment.

What I’ve come to realize, the older I get, is that gift giving is one of the most creative things we do for each other. It’s not really about the object at all. A good gift proves you were listening, not that you have money to spend. The flex doesn’t come from the price tag, rather the thoughtfulness. And when I think about the gifts that have meant the most to me, none of them were the most expensive. They were the ones that told me someone had been paying attention to the moments I may not even remember.

I think about this a lot in the context of how overwhelmed we all are. When there’s no time to think, money becomes the easiest substitute for it. It’s simpler to buy the expensive candle or the trendy bag than it is to sit down and remember what someone actually said they wanted, three conversations ago, in passing. An impersonal expensive gift isn’t really a failure of generosity. It’s a symptom of a culture that has forgotten how to pay attention to one another.

Some of my favorite gift stories aren’t even my own, but I carry them with me anyway.

My aunt knows how much I love style and fashion, and she also knew, somehow, that I’d been wanting to get into knitting. So she gifted me a Damson Madder x Wool and The Gang bonnet knit kit. It wasn’t the most expensive thing she could have given me, but she knew it was a stylish take on a new hobby that excites me.

When my sister moved into her new apartment, her best friend gave her a framed print. But it wasn’t just any print. It was of the two of them together in my sister’s prized 1973 Mercedes 450 SL convertible. He gifted her a memory turned into something she could hang on her wall and look at every day.

And to take it even further, my dad knew about me and my sisters shared love of vintage cars, a love he passed down to us from his own. For each of our high school graduations, he gifted us our own 1973 Mercedes 450 SL convertibles. Mine is cream, hers is red. He’d had one since college and the other he found in a junkyard, and he spent years restoring them for us. It remains one of the happiest moments of my life, not because of what the car was worth, but because of what it meant that he’d spent years working toward that moment.

When my best friend threw her 25th birthday bash in New York City, I thought about what to get her for a long time. And then it hit me: what does everyone want from a milestone celebration? Something to remember it by. So I bought four disposable cameras, and once the night was over, I had the film developed and gave her the photos to keep forever.

Mother’s Day is another one of those holidays where I think everyone gets a little stumped. My mom feels like she has everything already, and I never want to just add another trinket to the pile. This year, I gave books instead, three different books for three different women. For my mom, I chose something wacky and unexpected, a book I knew she’d find quirky and funny. For my boyfriend’s mom, I gave her a beach read I love, one I was certain she hadn’t read yet, thinking of the trip out east we had coming up together. And for his sister, who became a new mom this summer, I gave a true story about a couple who sail across the Pacific, about the hardship they face along the way and how their love and trust in each other only grow stronger through it. It felt fitting for two people just starting a family of their own.

None of these gifts were expensive in the traditional sense. What they had in common was attention. Someone had noted something, held onto it, and turned it into an offering.

So how do you actually get better at meaningful gift giving? I don’t think it’s a talent so much as it’s a practice. Here is a handful of small habits you can start building today, and what I hope you’ll save for the next time you’re standing in a store feeling stuck.

Keep a gift file. The best gift givers I know are secret collectors of information. They note an offhand comment and act on it when a celebration arises. I like to think of it as keeping a running note somewhere of the things people mention wanting, loving, or missing. So when the occasion comes around, you’re not starting from scratch. You’re pulling from months of actually paying attention to your recipient.

Give yourself a constraint. Creativity tends to show up when we have less room to work with, not more. A budget, a rule that nothing can be bought new, or a challenge that the gift has to fit in your pocket, force you to actually think instead of defaulting to whatever’s easiest or most expensive. The limit is what makes you creative in the first place.

Let the object carry a story. A gift with a bit of history to it feels different from anything picked off a shelf. Vintage pieces, monogrammed touches, something restored or made by hand, all carry a story the recipient becomes part of the moment they receive it.

Consider the experience. Sometimes the most creative gift isn’t an object at all. A class, a reservation somewhere meaningful, tickets to something specific to that person, these can say just as much as anything wrapped in paper. I don’t think one is more thoughtful than the other by default. It depends entirely on the person and what they’ll actually enjoy.

Resist the gift card. I understand the appeal of letting someone pick their own gift, but I think it outsources the whole point. The thinking is the gift. Convenience might save you twenty minutes, but it costs you the chance to show someone how well you know them.

Make something. There’s a real return happening to handmade gifts, playlists, zines, photo books, or a home cooked meal. I think it’s less nostalgia and more a pushback against a world where everything can be found, ordered and shipped in a day. Making something takes time nobody can buy for you.

Don’t skip the wrapping. The wrapping paper, the bow, and the card shouldn’t be an afterthought. It’s part of the creative act, and the last brushstroke on something you’ve put thought into. Take those extra few minutes to put time into the presentation. It’s always noticed.

If you take nothing else from this, let it be that a meaningful gift doesn’t ask you to spend more. It asks you to pay attention to the people you love and what makes each of your friends and family so special. Paying attention, in a world so busy and overexposed, is the most generous thing we can give each other at all.

There is a version of this feature where I list Mackenzie Ostrowski’s accolades and let them do the talking: a magazine with its own contributor wing, 30 million people reached this year alone, and a repost from Anthony Vaccarello himself. But that would miss the woman entirely, because if you ask Mackenzie who she is, she doesn’t lead with a title. She leads with a Chaka Khan song. I’m Every Woman isn’t just her favorite song, it’s practically a thesis statement: her life lived in fashion, law, art, food and finance all at once, refusing to pick a lane because why would she, when the whole point is to be dynamic.

I’ve known Mackenzie mostly through the fashion industry, partly because I contributed a few pieces to her magazine myself, and I’ve been a reader of hers for quite a while now. “How Do Creative Professionals Train Their Taste?” is the kind of piece I bookmark and come back to. So is “Here’s How to Read a Runway Show Like a Professional,” and “The ‘It-Girl’ Is Everywhere— But Does She Still Matter?”, which I still think about more than I’d like to admit. What I’ve always respected about Mackenzie’s writing is that it doesn’t ask for approval. Instead, it tries to make you think, and that’s a much harder thing to pull off.

For nearly a year after founding The Citizen’s Poste, almost no one in her life knew it existed, not even her family or closest friends. This was an intentional move, because she wanted an audience that showed up for the work and not for her. Most people don’t have the patience to build like this and let something you’re proud of stay unclaimed. She's stepped into the spotlight since, but her direction, the one that built the magazine, hasn't changed: the editorial still comes first, and she still refuses to let ego crowd her goal of creating something bigger and longer-lived than any one version of herself. Her eye, her honesty, her restraint, the sheer scale of what she’s pulled off in this little time: it’s all a version of the same thing. She’s not building a magazine. She’s building a standard.

Mackenzie Ostrowski, Editor-in-Chief of The Citizen’s Post(e).

Caroline: Who is Mackenzie Ostrowski? Before the magazine, before “Editor-in-Chief”, who are you, and how did you get here?

Mackenzie: My favorite song is “I’m Every Woman” by Chaka Khan, and I think that should tell you everything you need to know. I’m an extremely multifaceted person—always fashion, but also law, art, food, architecture, finance, anthropology, and whatever else catches my attention in a given week. I don’t believe in doing anything the “traditional” way, and that’s probably been my biggest career advantage: when I want something, my first instinct isn’t to ask whether it’s possible or where to start—it’s to hit the ground running. I figure the rest out as I go, and I do hold myself to a standard high enough to make that approach work. For me, that philosophy applies to every area of my life: go for things, commit to them fully. We get one shot at this, so make it interesting. Waiting is boring, and it’s better to try your hand at something than wonder what it might have been like if you did.

C: What was the moment or the itch that made you decide to start The Citizen’s Poste?

M: I wish I could say there was a “moment,” but the truth is I always knew I’d end up in fashion—which I recognize is an insane privilege, considering not everyone is lucky enough to be born knowing what they want and actually hang onto that interest into their twenties. The plan, for a while, was to sell my soul to corporate law or finance (riveting) and pivot into fashion later, degree in hand—except I’d already toyed with starting my own magazine more than once, and one night, on my way to a dinner reservation, I fell into conversation with some industry vets about a label that had just launched. I was offered a job on the spot, but couldn’t take it while I was still in school, so I did the next best thing: I built a website and an Instagram for a magazine I’d conceptualized in my Notes app over that same dinner. The Citizen’s Poste was officially founded two weeks later and launched the following month. Today, that decision has taken me to build the platform globally, with a contributor magazine, my own writing newly launched on Substack, major social media growth, and collaborations with some of my favorite houses and creatives along the way—and as of this month, we’ve reached roughly 30 million people across platforms in 2026 alone. Pinch me!

C: The Citizen’s Poste often reads as its own voice, almost separate from you personally. Was keeping yourself somewhat mysterious and distinct from the magazine a deliberate choice, and if so, why?

M: When I first launched The Citizen’s Poste, I didn’t even tell my closest friends and family for about ten months, the reasoning being simple: to grow, I needed an audience who showed up for the content, not for me. And yes, I now proudly announce my role and my work within the magazine, but thefounding philosophy still applies: the editorial comes first. I know I won’t get to turn The Citizen’s Poste into a legacy magazine within my own lifetime, because that’s not how legacy works—but I can set it up to become one. We’re young. Things are bound to evolve, expand, change shape entirely over the coming decades, and none of that can happen if the magazine remains exclusively an extension of Mackenzie Ostrowski. I’d love for it to outlive me, and that means keeping the reins loose when it comes to the magazine’s autonomy—still a work in progress, if I’m being honest.

C: You’re based between Paris and London but the magazine covers fashion as a global system. How does living abroad change what stories you think are worth telling?

M: I’d like to think I’ve always looked at fashion through an inherently global lens. I grew up traveling extensively (another huge privilege—thank you, parents!), my family is international, and my upbringing never felt strictly American, which has shaped my appreciation for other cultures and traditions from the start. Leaving the States and now splitting my time between Paris and London is partly practical, since most of my work happens here, but exposure is also crucial to growth, and to how we actually perceive the world. These cities are true melting pots, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today—much less the editor—without the people I’ve met and the stories they’ve shared with me. There’s far more stories out there than you could ever imagine, but you can’t wait for it to fall into your lap. So much of my perspective, my depth, even my values, has come directly out of intentional displacement.

C: Walk me through how a piece actually makes it onto The Citizen’s Poste. What makes you decide something is worth writing about?

M: I’m seriously over “here’s what’s trending this season” and “look at this new celebrity brand” content—don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place for image-forward, easily digestible material (in The Citizen’s Poste, that’s usually our social media though I still keep it sparse). I’m a consumer of it myself, after all. But when I’m sorting through pitches for our contributor magazine, I’ve found myself increasingly picky. I want The Citizen’s Poste to be a hub for substance, which starts with an angle—I think a lot of editorials lack a real thesis these days. That said, not everything needs to be a think piece, either; just give me something I can chew on, something I’ll reference in a week rather than forget by the next scroll. I’ve been deep in the art world recently—right now I’m editing a contributor piece on Matisse and Saint Laurent, for instance—but ultimately, my schedule already runs 80-hour work weeks (not very European of me), so unless a pitch is intriguing enough that I’d sit down and read it for leisure, it’s probably not making the cut. I should clarify: no work is “beneath” me, I just have a narrow lens right now. As our in-house editorial team grows, so will our capacity to commission and publish more external work.

C: How has becoming a founder shaped your life? And even though every day looks different, what’s the one thing that always stays constant in your routine?

M: My life is my work and vice versa, and I’ve made peace with that trade—though “peace” might be generous, given what it’s cost me in sleep, savings, and weekends. I won’t pretend the sacrifices are noble; they’re just the toll for building something from nothing, and I’ll spare you the greatest-hits list of 2am calls and skipped meals every founder trots out, because you’ve heard it before and so have I. What I’ll say instead is that the success worth having on the other side—the milestones, the collaborators, the rooms most people don’t know exist—is worth all of the blood, sweat, and tears (all three of which you are bound to become well-acquainted with during Fashion Month). As for routine: it’s different every single day, which is exactly why I refuse to let a few things become negotiable. Paris makes that easy—there’s always a gallery to duck into between meetings when I need it, and I’ve recently taken to yoga on whatever flat surface is nearest, which has recently included several hotel lobbies. I read constantly: old favorites in English, new ones in French while I work on my fluency (or lack thereof), and I’ve recently added Italian to the pile, mostly out of spite for how bad my French still is. I cannot walk anywhere without FaceTiming a friend and holding them hostage for at least twenty minutes, and I love, love, love to cook. No, I never really clock out—but at the end of the day I adore every woman I’ve become (and am still becoming) through my work.

A week or two ago, a girlfriend and I met up for ice cream and found ourselves hanging out in Casa Magazines for an hour, flipping through magazines and catching up.

I walked out with the newest Tatler, for my royal gossip fix, and the newest Harper’s BAZAAR, purely out of nostalgia for flipping through the style pages at fifteen. But reading magazines doesn’t feel the way it’s supposed to anymore. In every chick flick I grew up on, magazines were the pinnacle of news, critique, and discovery in fashion, art, and culture. So when I open one, I expect to walk away with a new perspective or understanding of the space. Instead, I skim past a handful of ads, a list of overpriced things to buy for the new season, and a celebrity profile that’s really just paid PR.

So I turn to The Citizen’s Poste instead. I’ve discovered a new leather bag brand and gotten to know the philosophy behind it. I’ve read a critical piece that finally said what I’d been thinking about Demna designing for Gucci. I’ve learned what actually constitutes couture, what the term means, who buys it, why it matters. I turn to The Citizen’s Poste to discover, to learn, to critique. Those are the elements that make this industry interesting in the first place, and they’re exactly what’s been replaced by overconsumption, “It-Girl” shopping lists, and performative content.

This Founder Friday is different for me. Usually I’d close with what I took from Mackenzie’s answers and how you might apply it to your own work or your own founder journey. Instead, I want to extend at invitation to learn, discover, read, think critically about the world around you, and about fashion specifically. That’s how you build a perspective worth sharing, in whatever form you choose to share it.

It feels like the fashion industry has lost its thesis. Mackenzie’s work at The Citizen’s Poste is bringing it back.

But first, I have to catch you up.

When we last spoke, I told you about the search for a manufacturer to finally bring the piece I have been dreaming of, in one form or another, to life for almost two years now. And I am so happy to tell you that my team and I are no longer searching in the dark. We have options in front of us, which I know might sound like a small thing to celebrate, but if you have ever tried to find the right manufacturer for a brand, you know how rare and precious that is. I always imagined our first piece, the reimagined hussar coat, being made right here at home in New York. That dream drifted to Italy, then to France, and now I find myself considering a small manufacturer in India, one whose embroidery work is truly extraordinary. I will not say much more just yet. That story deserves its own time to shine. For now, I want to give you something I have been holding onto for a while: the official Lilibet branding.

Meet the snail

If you look closely at the logo, you will find her tucked in there, a little snail making her home among the details. Shall we give her a name? I keep coming back to something like The Goring in London did for their beloved sheep mascot, Bar-Baa-Ra.

When I was a little girl, I was endlessly captivated by small creatures. I collected bugs, and my sister and I would spend entire afternoons at the pond behind our house, catching frogs and snails and carrying them around like treasure. So when it came time to design the mark that would represent Lilibet, I knew I wanted to carry a piece of that little girl with me. I chose a snail, partially for nostalgia, but mostly for three other reasons that mean even more.

The first is that a snail’s shell is hers for life. It stays with her always, growing as she grows. That is exactly how I imagine the woman who owns a piece of Lilibet. It is meant to be carried with her, season after season, growing alongside her.

The second is that snails are, by nature, unhurried. They move at their own pace, never chasing anyone else’s timeline. That is the very value I want Lilibet to be built on. This is not a fast fashion brand, and it never will be. It is a brand rooted in craftsmanship, and craftsmanship takes time.

The third is my favorite. A snail has two pairs of tentacles, one for sight and one for smell and touch. I love that she experiences her world through more than just her eyes, because that is exactly how I want the Lilibet woman to experience her clothing. It is not only something to be seen. It is something to be felt, in the weight of the fabric against her skin, and in the way it moves with her. The way a piece feels will always matter to us just as much as the way it looks.

Who Lilibet really is

I think it is easy to assume branding begins and ends with a logo, but it holds so much more than that. It carries a brand’s values, its vision, and its sense of taste. So before I go any further, I want you to know who Lilibet truly is, not simply what she will look like on a rack someday.

Lilibet is not a label. She is a woman.

She takes care of herself, her home, and the things she surrounds herself with. You can see it in the workouts she chooses, the food she prepares, and the people she lets into her life. You can see it in the way she wears her hair, and the time she takes getting dressed each morning.

Fresh flowers on the table. Fine china brought out for no particular occasion. A perfume that feels like hers alone. These are not indulgences she saves for special moments. They are simply how she lives. Her home carries the scent of santal and gardenia. Sundays are her favorite. She spends them immersed in her faith, in her kitchen, or in the garden with a paintbrush in one hand and a glass of Villa Sparina in the other, surrounded by people she loves.

She is playful. She is warm and intimate. She is, above all, alive.

I think Lilibet speaks to her because she can feel that every stitch was sewn with the same intention she brings to her own days.

Coming Soon

Ashlyn in the Rocky Pinstripe Blazer and Walker Pinstripe Trouser

When I came across Centre Piece for the first time, it was nothing but a moodboard and a chic font choice. Ashlyn was posting branding materials on TikTok, with no product yet and no launch date. But I remember thinking: I just found something really good, and I get to watch it happen before anyone else does.

I wasn’t wrong.

Her first collection landed and it was gorgeous. Every one since has been better. I haven't gotten my hands on a piece yet, but I've seen her collections up close, and the fabrics pass every test. I've had my eye on a butter yellow leather headscarf and skirt set for a while now. I think it's time to buy before summer ends, so I can carry it with me into fall.

The Centre Piece aesthetic is instantly recognizable. The Veil Top proves that sheer is a closet staple, not an accent piece. The Julia Mini is ethereal. It gives an effortless drape because someone spent months getting the fabric to fall exactly right. And the Alaya Maxi is a showstopper, full stop.

The Julia Mini Dress

What strikes me most about Ashlyn is how little distance there is between her and the brand. She is not performing Centre Piece. Every design choice she makes, down to the fabric selection, reads like an extension of how she moves through the world.

A few months ago I introduced Ashlyn to PJ, another founder I featured here for Bias Cut. Watching two women I admire find each other, and knowing I had a small hand in it, is one of my favorite parts of doing this series. It’s proof that this whole thing, this network of women building things they believe in, actually works the way I hope it does.

So here she is. In her own words for Bias Cut: Ashlyn Lawrence, founder of Centre Piece.

C: You left your fashion career in early 2024 and had Centre Piece launched by the end of that same year. What was the turning point? Was there a specific moment that made the decision, or had you already been building Centre Piece privately before you left your job?

L: It wasn’t one defining moment, but it also wasn’t something that happened overnight. Looking back, I think I had been searching for a different path before I was fully ready to admit it to myself.

Toward the end of 2023, I started taking the idea of building a business more seriously. I wrote my first business plan, spent evenings developing the visual world around the brand and even got my real estate license because I genuinely wasn’t sure what the next chapter would look like or which direction was right for me. I just knew I was craving something that felt like my own.

Then, in early 2024, the brand I was working for closed unexpectedly and I was laid off. It was a huge shock, but it also removed the excuse of “maybe one day.” I remember thinking, if not now, when? Looking back, I almost think I needed that push.

I gave myself eight months to launch Centre Piece, which, in hindsight, was incredibly ambitious. The first version of the brand was far from perfect. The packaging wasn’t fully refined, and I modeled the first collection myself to save money wherever I could, which also confirmed that I should probably stick to being behind the camera. But I’m grateful it wasn’t perfect. It taught me that a business doesn’t begin when every detail is polished. It begins when you are willing to put something into the world, learn from it, and keep improving.

C: Your philosophy revolves around “no more basics.” You’ve said no to the white button-down, the classic black trouser, because the market’s saturated. How do you know when an idea clears your bar of “different enough”?

L: If someone wants a classic white button-up shirt, they already have incredible options. They can buy one from The Row, COS, Zara, and almost every price point in between. As a small independent brand, I don’t think our role is to compete in categories that are already saturated unless we have something genuinely new to contribute.

I’d rather ask a harder question: what doesn’t widely exist yet, particularly at a contemporary price point? I am always looking for opportunities to create something distinctive that still feels wearable and attainable.

I actually think one of the biggest parts of designing is editing. People imagine a designer’s job is coming up with ideas, but for me it’s often deciding which ideas are not worth making. There are plenty of ideas I like that never make it into a collection because they don’t feel like they’re adding anything meaningful.

That doesn’t mean every piece has to be dramatic. Sometimes it’s a subtle shift in proportion, an unexpected fabrication or a unique construction detail. The goal is always the same: to create something that feels familiar enough to wear every day, but different enough to give someone a real reason to choose ours.

The Harlow Midi Dress, the Romee Fringe Skirt and Rowan Fringe Jacket, and Alaya Maxi Dress

C: Someone lands on your site, sees a $650 skirt, and thinks “that’s a nice piece with a markup.” Walk me through what they’re not seeing.

L: I completely understand why someone might have that reaction. If all you see is the finished garment on a website, it is almost impossible to know everything that came before it. Fashion is also incredibly personal, and I do not expect every piece to be for everyone.

For me, the value starts long before production, with deciding what is worth creating in the first place. Every piece has to feel distinctive enough to earn its place in the collection. Once a design is approved, months of development begin, including sourcing the right material, patternmaking, multiple rounds of sampling, fit corrections and construction changes. Sometimes a measurement shifts by only a few centimetres.

I also think people are often taught to judge quality mainly by fabric composition. Composition matters, but it does not tell the full story. Two garments can use similar materials and still be completely different in how they are cut, constructed, finished and how they wear over time.

The calf hair skirt is a good example. The material itself is expensive and difficult to work with. The hides have to be selected carefully, the panels need to be matched, and mistakes during cutting or construction are much more costly than with a standard woven fabric. Similar styles from established designer brands often retail for two or three times our price.

There are also the costs of bringing a piece to market, including freight, import duties, photography, packaging and fulfilment. Because Centre Piece is direct to consumer, we are able to invest more of the price into the garment itself rather than building in the additional margins required for wholesale and department-store retail.

Ultimately, I do not expect someone to buy a Centre Piece piece simply because I can explain how much work went into it. I hope they buy it because they see something that feels genuinely worth owning.

C: You wrote that even on your honeymoon the business was “in your inbox, your camera roll, your suitcase.” If Centre Piece hit a scale where you had to actually let go of the daily UPS runs and the packing, would you? Or is staying that hands-on the whole point?

L: We grew faster than I expected last year, which was very exciting! In the fall, we transitioned to outside fulfillment, so I am no longer doing every UPS run or packing every order myself, although I still step in from time to time. Packing those first orders is something I will always be grateful for. It was one of the most rewarding parts of the early days, and I learned so much by being involved in every step of the process. I remember the first time orders went out without me packing them. It felt surprisingly strange because those little rituals had become such a meaningful part of building the business.

I have learned that being hands-on does not have to mean doing everything. I still stay very close to the areas where I feel I add the most value, especially design, brand presentation, social and the analytical side of the business, which I think comes from my wholesale background.

The harder part has been learning what to let go of. I have tried to build support around the things that are either too time-consuming or outside my expertise. This summer, I hired a full-time production assistant, and she has been a big help. I do not have a formal design background, so having someone with deeper experience in fabric sourcing, fit and development has made the product stronger.

For me, staying hands-on is not about holding onto every task. It is about knowing where I can contribute the most and being honest about where someone else can do it better.

C: Who is Centre Piece? Is she a character you’ve built with her own taste and rules, separate from you?

L: I do not think of Centre Piece as a fictional character with a completely separate identity. She is definitely an extension of me, but not only a direct reflection of me. I always wanted the brand to stand on its own and have a clear point of view without relying entirely on me to hold it together.

Even before I started the brand, I was often the person who built an outfit around one distinctive piece and kept everything else simple. I have always admired when someone wears something unexpected, yet it feels perfectly natural on them. It is rarely the most complicated outfit in the room. Sometimes it is an oversized pair of sunglasses, a statement coat or one detail that makes the whole look feel expressive and memorable. That instinct has shaped the way I design.

The Centre Piece woman notices details. She would rather own fewer pieces she genuinely loves than constantly replace things. She appreciates quality, but she is also thoughtful about where she spends her money. She is not chasing trends. She wants clothes that feel memorable long after the moment she first wears them.

I have always been naturally more observant and reserved, and style has always felt like another form of communication to me. That is why Iris Apfel’s quote has always resonated with me: “Fashion you can buy, but style you possess.” Great style is personal. It is about knowing who you are and expressing that in your own way.

The Eden Scarf Top and the Rowan Fringe Jacket

C: How has becoming a founder shaped your life? And even though every day looks different, what’s the one thing that always stays constant in your routine?

L: Becoming a founder has shaped almost every area of my life, but perhaps the biggest shift has been in how I think about my time and relationships. Building a business, especially while planning a wedding over the past year, left very little free time and made me much more intentional about who I spent it with. Some friendships grew much deeper, while others naturally fell away. It made me value the relationships that feel supportive, reciprocal and genuinely grounding.

My days rarely look the same, but the one constant is that I am always looking for inspiration. My camera roll probably makes very little sense to anyone else. It is full of things like fringe trim on the curtains at a hotel, the typography on a restaurant menu, an installation I saw at a gallery in Santa Fe, interesting door handles, beautiful fabrics and small details I notice in daily life. I am constantly saving things without always knowing exactly how they will be used.

Months later, I will often go back through those photos and realize that a particular element or feeling has found its way into a collection, an event detail, or another part of the Centre Piece world. Even when I am technically away from work, I am still observing. I think that curiosity has become less of a routine and more of a way of seeing the world.

I took the time to reflect on Ashlyn’s responses to my questions.

I was told that my own designs were too different and too intricate to take on. I almost talked myself into a “core collection” of basics I already liked wearing instead. Something safer to start with. I’m so glad I didn’t. Ashlyn said it better than I could have: “As a small independent brand, I don’t think our role is to compete in categories that are already saturated unless we have something genuinely new to contribute.” This exact perspective is why you don’t shrink your idea to fit the market.

But if I’m honest, the thing that’s going to stay with me longer is the imperfection. I can get so tangled up trying to make everything right before I let anyone see it, and Ashlyn is proof that this instinct will hold you back more than it protects you. Nothing is ever perfect. Centre Piece looks like it did everything right from the outside, and even she’ll tell you the packaging wasn’t refined and she modeled the first collection herself because there was no other option. The customer never sees the version you wish you’d done better. They see the piece. Launching, actually putting the work into the world, is the thing that matters. Everything else gets fixed later, or it doesn’t, and either way you’re still building.

I think our industry has a habit that’s going to take a while to unlearn. We’re wired for new and now, for the thing no one’s seen yet, for something fresh to link on ShopMy. Nobody claps for you wearing the same piece three years in a row. But I think that’s shifting, slowly. I think we’re circling back toward buying things with the intention of keeping them. Centre Piece is built for that shift, whether or not that was ever the plan.

There’s something in this interview for whoever’s reading it. If you’re a future founder who hasn’t started yet, I hope this is your permission to stop waiting. If you’re building right now and stuck on your next launch, I hope Ashlyn’s framework, what earns its place and what doesn’t, gives you a clearer way to decide. And if you’re just here because you love clothes and the women who make them, I hope you walk away wanting to build an outfit around one thing you actually love, instead of ten things you don’t.

The Willow Leather Skirt and the Sydney Leather Headscarf

By now you’ve probably heard about the Paige Paul (Lorenze) vs. Four Winds scandal. If you haven’t, allow me to catch you up.

Dairy Boy founder Paige Paul (formerly Lorenze) found a gold-lettered “No Influencers” sign hanging in Four Winds Craft Guild, a family-run craft shop on Nantucket nearing its hundredth year in business. The store had posted a photo of the sign to Instagram. The owner says it was a wink at people who walk in phone-first. Lorenze took to Instagram to comment, calling the sign hypocritical for a self-described “feminist” business, arguing it mocked women in a new industry, one that women overwhelmingly built. Then it got messy. The store’s original post got mass-reported and pulled down. Four Winds fired back with an Instagram Story (“Imagine being so bored with life...”) and reposted the sign. Now the shop says it’s getting death threats, the internet has split into two camps, and a wooden sign in a basket shop has become a referendum on influencer culture itself.

I woke up, phone first, and did my usual scroll. My gut reaction was annoyingly split. Both sides pulled at me. I know what it’s like to stand on either end of that sign.

The debate, stripped down

Forget the feminism angle for a second. For me, this story isn’t about women. I think it’s a story about what the influencer economy gives a place, and what it takes.

It gives visibility. A small shop with artisans behind it gets seen by a million more people than it would otherwise. It gives access to industries that would have otherwise needed a corporate machine behind them to grow.

It takes something too. It takes the quiet out of peaceful places. It takes a basket shop that’s been open since 1948 and turns it into a stage. It takes your favorite local coffee shop and turns your Saturday morning into a line wrapped around the block.

That’s the actual tension. Not who’s allowed to call themselves a feminist.

What my boyfriend said

I brought it to my boyfriend over coffee that morning, mostly to see if he’d agree with me. He didn’t, not entirely, and it was the most useful conversation I had about this all week.

His sister raced competitively with Paige growing up, and as a racer himself, knows the dedication it takes to ski race. He respects her discipline, her hustle, and what she’s built. And his first instinct wasn’t to defend “influencers.” It was to argue that Paige is a bad example of what that sign is actually mocking. There’s a difference, he said, between a creator and an influencer. A creator uses a platform to sell something they made. An influencer mostly points a camera at things other people made. He wasn’t defending the industry. He was saying she isn’t the target.

I think he’s right, and I think it matters, because it means the sign and the backlash to it are both aimed at the wrong thing. The problem was never people building personal brands. The problem is what happens when a place gets treated like content and nothing else.

The time it happened to me

Last winter, I posted a video comparing what my family wore to the Nutcracker against what everyone else in the audience had on. Most people looked normal. My family tends to go all out for any special occasion, and that was really the point of the video. It was more about showing off our outfits, not anyone else’s.

I got backlash almost immediately. Strangers, and then by my own boyfriend. He was right too. Filming other people without asking isn’t fair, no matter how harmless it feels from behind the phone. I don’t do it anymore. Now I keep my content to my own world: what I’m wearing, what I’m thinking, what’s inspiring me that week. And honestly, what makes that world feel worth watching is exactly what I don’t show. I gatekeep the places that still feel like mine. It’s the only way they stay mine. It’s also, not for nothing, the reason my sister and I can’t get coffee on a Saturday morning at our usual spot, Nitro Bar, without a line wrapped around the block.

Where I’d actually draw the line

There’s a difference between documenting an experience and mining one.

I filmed a video at a store in London, a coat brand I’d fallen in love with. I asked the manager first. I walked in already intending to buy something. If she’d said no, I would have found another way to talk about the brand and the coat, just not on camera, inside her shop.

That’s different from walking into somewhere, filming the product and the vibe and the whole curated world someone else built, creating a buzz around it, and walking out having given nothing back. One version is sharing something you love. The other is extraction.

If I opened a store tomorrow

My friends have asked if I’d hang a sign like that at Lilibet. No. I wouldn’t single out a group of people that publicly, ever. It’s cheap, and it’s not who I want the brand to be.

But I would put up a “no photos, no video” sign, and I don’t think that’s the same thing. Lilibet is built to be exclusive. Small runs, handcraft, an experience around the purchase, not just the purchase itself. A sign like that isn’t exclusion. It’s protecting the thing that makes it worth wanting in the first place. The Row doesn’t let phones into their shows for the same reason. You can’t experience mystery through a screen on your couch. You have to actually be there.

Where Paige lost me

I agree with most of what she said. I don’t agree with the comparison she made to lawyers and bankers who also vacation on Nantucket, as if they’re equally responsible for what the island has become. They’re not. They didn’t create the lines outside the coffee shops or the waitlists at every restaurant or the sense that the whole island is now a backdrop instead of a retreat. Influencers did that. That part of her argument didn’t hold up, even if the core of it did.

And Four Winds lost me too

I stood by their original sign. I understood the purpose behind it. But everything they did after- the story, the “imagine being so bored” jab, reposting the sign, reposting other negative rhetoric- left a bad taste. There’s a real difference between having boundaries and going out of your way to make a group (of primarily young women) feel small. Preserving your mystery is one thing. Being nasty about it is another. I don’t feel inspired to give them my business after watching how they handled it, even though I think they were within their rights to hang the sign.

So, screw influencers?

Not really. That’s the joke.

What I actually mean is: screw the version of influencing that shows up somewhere, takes what it needs, and leaves nothing behind. Screw the version that turns a hundred-year-old shop or a neighborhood coffee bar into content. That’s not creating. That’s just consuming, out loud, with a camera on.

The version I want to build looks more like what happened in London. Ask first. Support the brand and it’s craft. And know it’s ok to keep some things just for me, because the parts of my life I don’t put online are the reason anyone wants to see the parts I do.

I started by knocking on doors in New York, literally.

Manufacturer after manufacturer said no. I had no tech pack and a design vision with passementerie details too intricate for most of them to take on. It’s expensive to produce, takes time to hand stitch, and requires a specific skill and a knowledge of embroidery that most factories simply don’t have. On top of that, my MOQ was too small.

A new brand like myself experiences difficulty finding manufacturers for the following reasons:

Risk and Cost

MOQ’s are set by factories to cover the setup costs of machinery, labor, and materials. The mills providing your manufacturer with textiles to make your products set MOQ’s as well. They may refuse you because small batch production, lack of capital, and invalidated market demand make you a high risk.

Lack of Verified Track Record

I went to manufacturers lacking the proper research and development. I showed them my rough sketches and Pinterest inspiration, rather than tech packs for my designs. This signaled that I’m new, inexperienced, and unreliable, as most brands fail within 1 to 2 years. I may not be a repeat customer, which makes me a high risk.

Operation Cost

The downtime a manufacturer experiences setting up a new line of production for a new brand producing in small batches is inefficient and unprofitable. There is an added cost of time manufacturers take to run through revisions and sampling for a new brand. Established brands, with a higher MOQ, are more appealing.

Gatekeeping

Manufacturers doing excellent usually don't advertise. They are booked out via referral and word of mouth. Often they are wary of new, unproven brands who might not reorder or might waste their time.

I ran into another problem while shopping around for manufacturers in America, specifically. The U.S. is excellent at cotton basics, denim, sweats, activewear, and simple silhouettes. That’s where the infrastructure is. Unfortunately, unlike Europe, we lack traditional master apprentice systems.

The manufacturers who can actually create my hussar coat design either don’t exist here, or they exist at a price point that makes no sense for a small, quality-driven brand trying to also turn a profit. I’m not trying to make a basic product, I’m trying to make an heirloom, something meant to be collected. Worn for years, and eventually passed down.

So I backtracked. You can’t bring a project to a manufacturer with no technical vision to show them. I needed a tech pack before I needed anything else.

I found my technical designer in the comments section of a TikTok video. We clicked immediately. She’s been in the industry thirteen years, and in that time she’s built relationships with manufacturers all over the world. I didn’t hire a sourcing agent, not technically, but she has acted like one in every way that matters.

She pitched my design to an Italian manufacturer that specializes in small batch production, fine textiles, and leather, with knowledge of the embroidery work I needed. Strong contender.

I’ve also been toying with an idea: using beads to build the passementerie instead of fabric. The coat launches spring/summer, and I think the sparkle adds something bright and warm-weather appropriate that fabric passementerie can’t. So we pitched a manufacturer in India that does small batch work, fine textiles, and beaded embroidery.

Then a manufacturer in New York heard about the brand and the design and reached out. They loved the concept, and wanted in.

Three strong options. But I’m still not entirely satisfied. I expected relief the moment I had a real lead. Instead I have three, and I’m still searching, because this coat only gets one shot at being made right the first time.

So the search continues. I’m registering for Première Vision in Paris, a trade show built for finding manufacturers who specialize in what you’re trying to create. Most exhibitors list their specialties online, so I’ve been sifting through those too. There are trade shows like this all over the world. Find the one closest to what you actually need, not just the one closest to you.

The other place I keep coming back to is social media. Reddit, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok. I’m constantly running different keywords and phrases through all four, looking for the thread that leads somewhere.

Nobody warns you how long this part takes. Finding a manufacturer that meets your standard, and doesn’t just meet it but exceeds it, is slow. It requires knocking on more doors than you’d like, and being told no more times than you’d like.

But it’s also the part that shapes everything after it. Lilibet doesn’t exist without this.

Xx

This time, we’re getting into something I’ve been very excited about, and looking forward to sharing with you. The brand identity.

A logo isn’t just a logo. It’s the first thing someone sees before they’ve touched the fabric, read the story, or understood you’re brand. It has to say everything without saying anything. It has to be recognizable across a coat label, a website, a shoe buckle, the back of a garment. It has to feel, immediately, like Lilibet.

No pressure, right?

I found my designer the way I find most things these days. On Instagram. I’d been searching for someone to help bring the visual identity to life, but everything I came across felt too industrial, too modern, and too clean cut. I knew what I was looking for: something softer, hand-drawn, and personal. So I typed exactly that into the search bar and kept scrolling until something stopped me.

She stopped me.

She came back to me this week with a full deck, complete with color palettes, typography options, decorative elements, logo directions. She’d pulled directly from my Pinterest mood board, which meant she already understood the world I was building. Still, seeing it all laid out in front of me was the first time I truly understood how many decisions go into something as seemingly simple as a name on a page.

On the colors: The palette she sent leaned cool to me. Dusty blues, muted roses, soft sages. Beautiful on their own, but not quite Lilibet. Lilibet is warm. She’s the English countryside in late afternoon light, tobacco and cream and orange blossoms. I want the colors to feel like something you’d find in an old painting.

We’re going back to the drawing board on this one, and I think I know exactly where I’m headed. But before I decide, I want to hear from you. I've numbered the swatches. Pick your three and drop them in the comments.

On the typography: She gave me two directions. A cursive script, that looks handwritten and personal. And a clean serif in all caps, that reads architectural and structured. One looks like it belongs on a perfume bottle bought it Paris, while the other above a door in a beautiful neighborhood of London.

Before I tell you where I’m leaning, let me tell you who Lilibet is for. Because the logo has to belong to her.

She sets her table with fine china, with flowers in an antique silver vase. She starts and ends her day with something homemade, picked from her own garden. Candles are always lit, and soft jazz is always playing. She enjoys a glass of Gavi di Gavi, a cashmere blanket, and her favorite book. She doesn’t own fast fashion. She owns items she’s collected over the years. Cotton basics that hold their shape, vintage pieces she hunted for, natural materials that get better with age. She is not chasing anything. She already knows what she likes.

Now look at both logos again.

I’m leaning toward the script. It has a warmth and handmade quality that feels right for a brand rooted in craftsmanship. But I’m not sure it’s there yet. I want it to look less like a font and more like something written on a piece of stationery by someone who still sends handwritten notes.

Which one belongs in her world, the script or the serif?

This is a collection of typography samples from my mood board. Some are a mixture of serif and san serif. Could we combine the two?

On the decorative elements: This is the part I keep coming back to.

She designed an illuminated L, wrapped in lily of the valley. It’s genuinely beautiful, and just the kind of thing you’d find pressed into the front page of an old book. I just haven’t figured out where it lives yet. As a standalone emblem? Embossed on packaging? Woven into the lining of a coat? The possibilities are there. I’m still thinking.

Then there are my frogging sketches. Three variations of a passementerie closure, which is the detail that runs down the front of a hussar jacket. I drew these myself, which felt equal parts fun and humbling. My sister has already weighed in. She prefers the single-sided option. I’m leaning towards the mirrored design.

I’ve been thinking about what Gucci did with the horse bit. A single motif, so specific and so consistently repeated that it became synonymous with the brand before you ever saw the label. That’s what I want for Lilibet. A passementerie detail that shows up on a coat, sewn into the back of a collar, placed on a shoe like a buckle, underlining the name on a tag. Something you recognize immediately, even out of context.

Here’s where I need you. Look at the sketches. Mirrored or single-sided? And where would you want to see this detail? Is it on the garment, on the packaging, both? Tell me in the comments.

The logo, the typography, and the colors are the face of the brand.

I’m sharing the images in this post. The scripts, the serifs, the illuminated L, the color swatches. Tell me what feels like Lilibet to you. What reads warm and collectible. What you’d recognize on a label ten years from now. Leave it in the comments.

Oh, and the fabric I mentioned in my last post? I promised you a sneak peek. Here she is!

More very soon.

Xx

I first met Caroline at work. Though I use that term loosely, because the day we met, work looked like throwing a party in Montauk.

I was at Shop Rodeo at the time, wearing every hat imaginable, and my boss brought Caroline on as an intern to help with an event we were hosting to celebrate the app’s launch. We needed all the hands we could get. Thanks to Caroline, the party was a hit.

That was my introduction to her work ethic, before I knew anything about the world she was building.

One year out of college. A loyal, engaged following she’s built consistently over time. And a brand — with Collection One already sold out and Collection Two on the way — built around something as personal as reworking vintage blazers by hand, across three generations, named after streets that have meant something to her life. What she’s built with @fashfuncult and now Rue Bespoke made the decision to feature her an easy one.

There is something about watching someone your own age move that intentionally that makes you sit up a little straighter. Caroline isn’t waiting for the right moment, the right connection, or the right amount of followers. She is building. Right now. And up until about a week ago, she was doing all of this alongside a full-time job in New York City. Her ability to build her vision, with a clarity that most people twice her age are still searching for, is what inspires me most.

Rue and Lilibet are different things. But when I look at what Caroline is building, I recognize something. A shared obsession with the craftsmanship and tailoring that the industry has swiftly abandoned. The conviction that clothing should be limited and worth keeping, not replaced next season. The belief that a piece should mean something to the person who owns it, and maybe even to the person who inherits it. And the refusal to wait until we’re older, more established, or more certain before we start building something we actually believe in.

That’s the kind of founder I want to introduce you to every week.

Without further ado. Caroline Adams of Rue Bespoke.

Finelli: Rue is named after your childhood dog. Every piece is named after a street that means something to you. Your 98-year-old Gaga reworks each garment by hand. It feels as though these individual pieces came together so perfectly to form your brand. What was the journey pulling Rue Bespoke together?

Adams: Yes, my brand is named after my childhood chocolate Lab, Rupert, who we called Rue for short. When I was thinking of a name for my brand many years ago, this one just felt natural and organically stuck. It also has a double meaning, given that rue in French means “street,” and all of my pieces are named after streets that hold significance in my life.

All of the garments are reworked by up to three generations. My 98-year-old Gaga is the eldest and has generously helped with the iconic Wren fringe blazer. Having her play such a major role in building my brand has been incredibly special to me.

In all honesty, how everything came together wasn’t necessarily part of the plan. Looking back now, I can see how naturally it all unfolded, and I’m pretty damn proud of that. I’ve always wanted to build a brand of my own and become an entrepreneur ever since I was a little girl who dreamed of following in my mom’s footsteps as a successful female founder. I wanted the name to be meaningful and not named after me because the brand is bigger than that. Rue came to mind one day and instantly stuck.

As for the actual product, the one-of-a-kind reworked vintage blazers also came naturally. I’ve always admired the richness of tailored clothing, especially men’s tailoring, which was heavily inspired by my dad’s wardrobe of custom suits and jackets made on Savile Row in London. As soon as I had the means to dress myself, I would always find myself gravitating towards more mature pieces, whether it was something from my mom’s closet or eventually finding a love for vintage shopping one-of-a-kind pieces. I fell in love with hand-sourcing unique pieces that no one else had. Shortly thereafter, the idea of bringing a new life into vintage blazers came to me, and it just felt like the perfect fit for my brand. I guess you could say the rest is history.

F: You built @fashfuncult to over 8,000 followers before Rue existed as a product. Most founders launch first and try to find their audience later. You did it the other way around. What did building that audience first actually give you when it came time to sell something?

A: I never really thought of it like this. Fashfuncult was born in March 2020 during quarantine in the middle of the COVID pandemic. Since then, it’s always been an outlet for me to share snippets of my personal life and personal style while connecting with like-minded people on the internet.

It’s definitely been a slow-burning candle over the years, but I love my small, close-knit community. More than anything, I feel like I’ve built a profound amount of trust and credibility with my followers. It almost feels like I’m friends with every one of them. It’s funny because with only 8,000 followers, I never would’ve thought I’d get stopped in public by strangers asking, “Are you Fashfuncult?” But every once in a while, it happens, and it still pinches me. When it came time to launch Rue, it felt very natural to share that I was building something new. If someone likes my personal style, which is probably 99% of what I post every day, then there’s a good chance they’ll like what I’m creating with Rue.

It also gave me a head start. Follower count doesn’t matter nearly as much as people think, but having an established audience meant I wasn’t starting completely from ground zero. There were already people who knew me, trusted me, and were excited to follow along with this next chapter, which I’m so grateful for.

All of that being said, I know it’s incredibly intimidating to start from absolutely nothing. But you have to start somewhere. And by the way, it is not embarrassing, and never will be. Not that it matters most, but it’s especially not embarrassing once you start seeing dream brand deals come in. ;)

F: You launched Collection One, sold through it, and Collection Two is already coming Fall 2026. What was it like balancing a 9-to-5 in NYC alongside building Rue? What does a real day in this look like, and what have you had to let go of to make both work?

A: It’s definitely not easy, especially being one year post-grad in a brand-new city on your own. It looked like early mornings where either working out or sleeping got sacrificed. Then after a full day at the office, I’d come home and spend another six to eight hours in front of my computer, or in front of the garment itself.

Luckily, I’ve had extra hands to help, including my mom and Gaga with the sewing. But I still had to sacrifice things like getting a solid seven-plus hours of sleep, quality time with friends in NYC, and even time with family when they would come up to visit.

I started putting time limits on social media apps when I wasn’t creating content, and most weekends were spent sourcing vintage garments, meeting with people, shopping for fabrics and materials, building my website from scratch, doing outreach, or working on social media marketing.

Let’s just say my Oura sleep score was around 40 most nights, and my screen time increased significantly after becoming the social media manager for two brands. Burnout is very real, but I knew this was never going to happen overnight. I had to sit myself down and grind. The funny thing is, it never really felt like work. It still doesn’t. It’s simply a passion. I genuinely feel like a little kid on Christmas morning every day!

F: What does Rue do that you genuinely believe nobody else is doing, not in a marketing way, but in an actual product and process way?

A: I think it goes back to the product itself: reworked vintage blazers. Hand-sourced. Intentionally reworked. Thoughtfully curated.

I’ve always found myself thinking about how fun it would be to add certain details to a blazer or completely reimagine parts of it. Sure, you can buy a blazer from almost any fashion brand today, but it’s not a vintage piece with original craftsmanship from the 1960s, exclusive one-of-a-kind fabrics, or the iconic tailoring details from decades past.

To me, it’s about preserving the beauty of the garment’s tailoring, especially since most of my pieces date anywhere from the 1940s through the early ‘90s. No one really makes blazers like that anymore. And even if someone is reworking vintage blazers, they’re not doing it the way I envision the potential of each piece and what it could become... Overall, I genuinely can’t think of another brand doing exactly that.

F: When you imagine Rue five years from now, what does it look like, and what’s the one thing you absolutely refuse to compromise on to get there?

A: Right now, I’m thinking a lot about how to scale a vintage-centered company when every piece is one of one and can’t simply be replicated.

With that being said, I’m excited to eventually move into production and create a select few core styles that can be offered in a wider range of sizes. And... I might even branch into other articles of clothing soon. ;)

But one thing I’ll never leave behind is the vintage reworked blazer. It will always be the heart and foundation of my brand. No matter how Rue evolves or what new categories are introduced over time, that will never change.

F: How has becoming a founder shaped your life? And even though every day looks different, what’s the one thing that always stays constant in your routine?

A: It has truly been the best and most fulfilling change in my life. During the thick of building Rue, I definitely lost a few parts of my routine, especially consistently working out and prioritizing self-care, both of which have always been important to my well-being. Some mornings those things have to be sacrificed, and that’s okay, but I always come back to them because they help clear my mind.

I’ve also learned that I’m a big creative, but I’m not creative 24/7, and that’s actually a good thing. Sometimes I need to go for a walk without music or lock myself in my room with a sketchbook while listening to old classic rock. That’s when I regain that sense of creativity and ideas start flowing again. I think some of my best ideas come during those moments of stillness. Someone once said your best ideas come in the shower, and I completely resonate with that.

Making time for myself, even in the busiest seasons, will always be part of my routine because being a founder doesn’t really have office hours. You’re always working. You’re never truly off. It’s incredibly rewarding, but prioritizing yourself and your mental health is more important than anything.

I noticed a pattern in Caroline’s answers. The name came naturally. The product came naturally. The audience came naturally. None of it was engineered. It unfolded, as she put it, organically. And yet the result is a brand with a sold-out collection, a second on the way, and a community that stops her on the street.

What sets Rue apart isn’t the category. Reworked vintage blazers exist. What doesn’t exist is Caroline’s specific vision for what each piece could become. That’s the differentiator. Not the product. The eye behind it.

She said something in this interview that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. That starting from nothing is not embarrassing, and never will be. I needed to hear that a year ago. I suspect some of you needed to hear it today.

Fear of embarrassment is quietly the thing that keeps most people from ever beginning. Not lack of money, not lack of connections, not lack of the right moment. The fear of being seen trying. Caroline tried. Publicly. From zero. Now she has a sold-out collection, with her second on the way.

I knocked on manufacturers doors last month with a folder of Pinterest screenshots and no idea what a tech pack was. I wrote about the experience starting here. If you read it, you already know that the beginning is always a little embarrassing. That’s the whole point. You do it anyway.

Stillness is where Caroline’s best ideas live. A walk without music, a sketchbook, a locked room and old classic rock. I carve out these moments as well, or I’m up at midnight writing things on paper so I don’t lose them by morning. It’s one of the quieter things that founders share. The understanding that you cannot pour from a constantly running tap.

The best brands aren’t built from opportunity. They’re built from a lifetime of noticing things other people walk past, and the refusal to be embarrassed about creating it.

Here’s the part nobody tells you when you start building something. The brand doesn’t wait for the product. It starts the second you decide who you are.

My day begins before I’ve made a single decision that looks like “founder work.” I make my bed. I tidy my room. I go to the kitchen and have a scoop of sea moss gel, then put the kettle on. While the water heats, I shower. Everything I use, from my shower products, to my perfume, to my candles, smells like the same three notes: santal, gardenia, eucalyptus. Not because I’m precious about it, but because a woman who is coherent in one room is coherent in every room.

When I come out, I stir raw honey into my tea and eat fruit alongside it. I never eat the fruit out of the plastic tin it came in. I put it in a bowl. A pretty one. It takes eleven extra seconds and it changes the entire tone of the moment. That’s the whole secret, actually. Elevation isn’t expensive. It’s a decision you make on repeat until it becomes a reflex.

Then I get dressed, and the real interview begins.

I ask myself three things. Comfort: I don’t mean sweatpants-comfortable, I mean can I move through my day without fidgeting to make this look right. Color: am I in my colors, the soft, warm ones that make my autumn complexion glow instead of fight against the fabric. Silhouette: does this frame my body in a way that’s feminine, regal, and mine.

That’s not a coincidence. That’s Lilibet. Soft, warm colors. Feminine, structured silhouettes. A coat you can dress up or dress down without it ever looking like it’s trying hard. Every piece in my closet already works this way, because I built the closet before I built the coat. The product isn’t inventing a new woman. It’s formalizing one who already exists. Me, on a Tuesday, making tea.

Even my antique silver and my toile china are part of it. If you walked into my apartment without knowing anything about Lilibet, that’s the detail that would tell you everything. These items, my clothes, my beauty and hygiene products are not a treat, they’re a habit. One word for how I want to feel inside all of this: exceptional.

Here’s where I want to talk to you directly, founder to founder, because this is the mistake I watch people make constantly. Their brand is one thing. They are another. And the customer feels the gap immediately, even if they can’t name it. People don’t just want a product that reflects a lifestyle, they want a product that reflects its creator. You are the first proof of concept. You are your own best advertisement.

This isn’t true for every brand, and knowing the difference matters. I’m also building CRISCI, an eyewear line built around my father’s personal aesthetic. I will never be the face of that brand. If I stood in front of it, I’d confuse the customer instead of inspire them. My father is the one who makes sense there. Knowing when to embody a brand and when to step back from it is its own kind of brand tactic.

But Lilibet is me. Today, I posted a series of photos on Substack Notes. It was just my work-from-home outfit, a piece of the morning routine, and my work day, with nothing staged as a “brand moment.” Someone commented that they were now on a mission to make their own “WFH life” this chic. That’s the whole thesis, proven in one comment. I didn’t sell her a coat. I sold her a way of living, and the coat will simply be the artifact of it when it arrives.

The clearest proof of this discipline, though, isn’t something I bought. It’s something I didn’t buy. I saw a pair of board shorts recently. They were so cute, on trend, cheap enough to not think twice about. The old me would have bought them immediately for a summer trip to Montauk. I could see the Instagram picture clearly: walking back to the house after paddle boarding that morning, wearing the shorts with a cute bikini (“candid” of course). Instead, I put them back. Not because they were bad, but because they belonged on a sporty, athletic Malibu girl, and that’s not who I am. That’s not a woman missing out on a pair of shorts. That’s a woman who just saved herself the cost of a product she would have worn for one picture, instead of the version of herself she’s building to last a decade.

That’s the intention. That’s the whole practice. Be the brand before the brand has a product to sell. Because by the time the product exists, your customer won’t be meeting her for the first time.

She’ll already know her.

Hussar jackets, frogging details, antique buttons, runway archives. I told myself I was “doing research.” Really, I was just scared to start.

About a month ago, I stopped pinning and started knocking. Literally. I looked up manufacturers in the garment district and walked in, unannounced, with nothing but a folder of inspiration images and absolutely no idea what I was doing.

One turned me away before I finished my sentence. One looked at me, twenty-something, clueless, holding printed Pinterest screenshots, and smirked. I don’t blame him.

The third one was kind. She told me the coat itself was doable. The embroidery, though, would have to go to a separate manufacturer entirely. It’s too expensive and too time consuming of a project for them to take on. I hadn’t anticipated this hiccup. Then she asked to see my tech pack.

I had no idea what a tech pack was.

She thought that was funny. I did not, in the moment. I went home and tried to build one myself, with zero training, and quickly realized I was about to waste a lot of time and money.

Yet, here’s where I actually went wrong, the big one: those manufacturer visits scared me. Every “this is expensive” and “this is too difficult” started to add up in my head until I convinced myself the hussar coat — the entire reason I started this — was too ambitious. So I pivoted. I started sketching a ready-to-wear line instead. Four basic bias cut silk sets. Cheaper. Easier. Nothing to do with the design I’d been dreaming about for two and a half years.

I felt like a sellout almost immediately.

That feeling is what brought me back. I scrapped the easier plan and went looking for someone who could actually help me build my vision. I found my digital designer on TikTok. Thirteen years in the industry, fluent in fabrics, construction, tech packs, manufacturer relationships, everything I missed skipping fashion school. We started working together, and for the first time since this whole thing began, I felt relief instead of panic.

In the last few weeks alone: we built a collaborative inspiration deck together, locked our final design, and sourced fabric (I’m smitten with the pattern and material and can’t wait to share with you). Finally it feels like the actual beginning of this brand, not just an idea about it.

I’m telling you this not because it’s impressive yet. It isn’t. I knocked on doors with no plan, didn’t know an industry-standard term, and almost quit on my own idea three weeks in.

I’m telling you because I think most people only ever see the finished thing, the launch, the campaign, the product shot, but never the part where the founder felt like a complete beginner in a folder full of dreams and zero credentials.

This is Lilibet at the very beginning. Knocking on doors. Getting turned away. Almost giving up on the hard version for the easy one. And then not.

More very soon.

It was COVID, and I was undeclared. Halfway through freshman year, I hopped on a Zoom call with my advisor, who informed me that she needed my decision on a major. At the time, I was deep into Mad Men, completely captivated by Don Draper’s pitch to Lucky Strike. “It’s toasted.” I declared advertising that spring, convinced I too could produce an entire campaign strategy on two words.

Junior year, doing research for a class project, I came across Fashionista. Aside from trend reports, they post job listings in New York and LA. (If you’re in college and looking for a place to start, this is genuinely it.) That’s where I found an internship with Molly Dickson, a celebrity stylist who has worked with Bella Hadid, Lana Del Rey, Kaia Gerber, and most notably, Sydney Sweeney. Molly is the woman behind nearly every iconic Sydney look you’ve seen: the custom Miu Miu VMAs look, the Met Gala, the Chloé partnership. I put together a deck and sent it to her team. I have no idea how I got that job. Looking back at the outfits I pulled together for her now genuinely makes me laugh. Five weeks later, I was packing up and moving to LA for the summer.

I learned about style that summer. More importantly, I learned about work ethic.

I flew to Nashville alone on a red-eye, hauling nine massive bags packed with hundreds of thousands of dollars of clothing, for a single fitting ahead of a Kelsea Ballerini music video. Another time I was driving four hours to pick up three couture dresses. Then got on another red-eye, this time to London, for less than twenty-four hours, so those exact looks could appear on a major talk show. I even made it back home in time for a midterm exam.

Everyone assumes the fashion industry is a joke. Just a bunch of women playing dress up. But I watched what it actually took for Molly to build her name: the sleepless nights, the round-the-clock running, all for a dress that might not even make the final cut. She knew that what gets photographed, what gets approved by the public, comes back to her name either way. That was the summer I understood the fashion industry isn’t a playground. It can be. But mostly, it’s an industry like any other. It demands the same hard work and the same sleepless nights it takes to make it anywhere.

After graduation, I moved back to New York with three girlfriends. I hadn’t landed a fashion job yet, so I took a receptionist position at a financial firm, which lasted exactly as long as I expected it to, which was not long. I’d already lined up an internship at Factory PR in Flatiron, working across fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and tech clients. Mostly I shipped boxes, organized showrooms, and built spreadsheets. But I had access to every influencer, celebrity, and editor’s email I could think of. I felt important. I was not yet important.

Four months later, the internship ended and I landed a role at MVPR. It was similar work, but more responsibility. Cold emails to editors. Pitching products. Tracking inventory. It was not my cup of tea. I felt creatively stunted. Here’s the thing nobody tells you: working in PR for fashion brands is not the same as working in fashion. I wanted to be near the clothes, the models, the shoots, the actual making of things. I wanted somewhere to put my own opinions. PR wasn’t that place. Not for me, anyway. I was also younger, impatient, and wanted everything immediately. So I moved again.

That’s when Rodeo found me. Quick recap of the journey so far: an advertising major who cut corners in InDesign, a celebrity stylist’s intern, two stints in fashion PR. Rodeo was something else entirely. It was a tech platform built around shop-the-look links from your favorite creators. Part of my job was writing Substack pieces about the people we featured. That’s the job where I rediscovered my love for writing. The graphics, the new people, the wider audience I was suddenly speaking to. It all clicked. It also taught me how to actually work as a team: it was just me, my boss, and her overseas engineers. The time difference, the language gap, and the advanced technology were genuinely hard, but she had a vision. I still think about how she communicated her vision across all channels. I use her methods now, managing my own manufacturers and freelance designers across multiple companies and time zones, most days without even noticing I’m doing it.

Eventually, I stopped growing at Rodeo. I needed something new (apparently I cannot stand still for very long). I moved to London for a month to get away from everything I knew. I wrote for myself. I experimented with new mediums. I worked on my (still very mediocre) TikTok skills. I am not a natural here, and I never claimed to be. What I do love is building a world around the intersection of travel, fashion, and photography. I had a specific vision for my Instagram: when you land on my feed, I want you to feel like you’ve stepped into my nook of the world, living it with me. Food that gets eaten with your eyes first. Outfits that blend into wherever they’re standing. Undiscovered corners of popular cities.

When I came home from London, I reached out to The Citizens Poste, intended to be my outlet to write opinion pieces. Mackenzie, the founder, is one of the smartest and kindest young women I know in publishing. Watching her capture a reader’s attention and hold it, sentence by sentence, taught me more about writing than any class did.

It was through The Citizens Poste that I reached out to Coco Schiffer’s team about an interview. A month and a half later, I was her assistant. Working alongside a stylist and influencer at that level was genuinely eye-opening, and I’m grateful for the time I spent with her. Coco has an unmistakable look, which is exactly why she’s so good at her job. She’s ruthless about which brands and products she’s willing to put her name on. When she tells her audience she loves something, she actually does. Her thing is Superguides and elevated basics. I saw an obvious opening for her to launch her own line. That didn’t happen while I was there (I hope it still does, one day), but watching that opportunity sit right in front of someone and go untouched taught me something about myself I wasn’t ready to hear yet.

I was the girl who played office. Who ran the Barbie mall. Who set up a lemonade stand and sold handmade bookmarks to the neighbors. I have never once, in my entire life, not carved out a title for myself, whether it’s costume director for the school play, or creative director of the UA Student Fashion Association. I grew up around women who built their own companies, and I’ve always admired people like Pia Mance, who landed on Forbes 30 Under 30 within three years of starting Heaven Mayhem. I listened to every podcast and TikTok she put out about building something from nothing. The whole time, the answer was right in front of me. I just hadn’t looked at it directly yet.

So I’m starting my next chapter. Working in fashion, yes. This time I’m building it myself. Or rather…brands, plural.

Six years, six jobs, three cities, and one very clear lesson: you are not going to love every part of an industry just because you love the idea of it. PR wasn’t my place. Some of the styling work wasn’t either. But every job taught me something I still carry: how to pitch, how to manage, how to build a world someone wants to step into, how to recognize an opportunity, and what hard work looks like. None of it was wasted, even the parts that felt like detours at the time.

If you’re early in your own path through this industry, or any industry for that matter, explore it. All of it. You’re not obligated to love every piece. But the exploring is what shows you which piece is actually yours. And if you’re someone with a vision you can’t stop thinking about, starting something of your own might be exactly where all of this was leading. It’s frightening. You’re betting on yourself with no guarantee. But you don’t move forward standing still.

Let me walk you through exactly what this looks like.

Step 1: You open your phone and go to Instagram.

Step 2: Your favorite influencer just posted her OOTD. Minimalist chic, as always. Sheer red pants, a white tank, a black beaded statement necklace with a matching shell pendant, black leather flip flops. She blends into her apartment, complete with Japanese tapestry and soft muted velvets.

Step 3: You already own everything- except the pants. You find the LTK link. It opens a new tab.

Step 4: Back to Instagram. A few scrolls later, there they are again. The same sheer red pants. This time on a different influencer, paired with a soccer tank that says Brazil (she’s Brazilian, she loves soccer) and the same black flip flops. She’s on a beach. The outfit suits her completely. You bought a tank just like hers last month, convinced it would look just as good on you in New York. You don’t even like soccer. Brazil isn’t your team. You don’t have a team.

Step 5: Back to the link. The pants are labeled a “summer staple.” 86% polyester, 14% elastane (basically a windbreaker with a higher price point). $265. Steep, but not unreasonable. You already have the flip flops, the soccer tank, the necklace. Two outfits for one purchase. You buy them.

Step 6: The pants arrive. You try on both looks. It’s satisfying, recreating something you’ve seen twice now and liked both times. But something’s off. You tell yourself you just haven’t found the right occasion yet. The necklace look is for drinks with the girls next Wednesday. The sporty look is for the beach trip next month.

Step 7: The pants sit in your closet, unworn. Both outfits, technically complete, never get worn either. You’re $265 down. You have a closet full of cute clothes. Outfits, even. None of them are yours.

This was me, about three years ago. I spent real money on clothes worn by women I admired, buying into things sold to me as “staples,” constantly trying to emulate the fashion girls I looked to for advice. My closet was a mismatch of borrowed aesthetics. Pieces worn once, money spent, nothing to show for it except the same thought every time I opened the door: how do I have a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear?

Maybe it’s because they don’t suit my lifestyle, my likes, hobbies, or interests.

One day, I asked myself: Whose wardrobe have you been building?

I found the cutest throwback photo from 2019, the two of us at the Alabama-LSU game wearing American flag pants because the president was on campus that day and the whole place was a riot. I have so many fond memories from that time, and Sophia has always been one of the people I admired most. Her style was one of the first things I noticed about her. She moves with this confidence, completely sure of herself, and it shows in everything she wears.

If you’re looking for genuinely good Instagram inspiration, go follow her right now. She has an eye for aesthetics that I’ve always respected, so it came as no surprise to me when she launched Sophia’s Curations back in February.

What moves and inspires Sophia is special on its own. But what’s even more special is watching her help other people find that same inspiration for themselves. It’s a real skill to see the connections in how someone lives and curate pieces that show up across every part of their life, from what they wear, the spaces they live in, to the way they show love to the people around them.

Her whole concept genuinely excites me. So before I give anything else away, allow me to introduce you to Sophia Hebda of Sophia’s Curations.

Caroline: Your about page has a childhood photo of you already fully dressed. Clearly this started early! What did style mean to you as a kid, and when did you realize it was something you could curate for other people?

Sophia: My parents loved to dress me up and take me out as a kid, so naturally I was influenced by them! I didn’t realize it at the time but they were definitely my main source of inspiration growing up. My mom has a beautiful eye for home décor and always seemed to effortlessly put together the most chic outfits. My dad has spent more than thirty years creating beautiful homes through his architectural cast stone company. I grew up surrounded by design and an appreciation for beautiful spaces, especially while working alongside my dad. Over the past few years, when people started asking for my advice or opinion, I realized this was something I wanted to try.

C: Your website covers wardrobe, home, and gifting. What made you see those three as one thing rather than three separate businesses?

S: To me, wardrobe, home, and gifting are all connected. We bring our personal style into everything we do, from what we wear to how we decorate our homes and celebrate the people we love.

I’ve had friends come to me for outfit advice and for help decorating a space. Over time I realized those weren’t separate interests, but that they all came from the same passion for helping people find beautiful, meaningful things. 

C: You’re based in Sarasota, but your aesthetic reads very much like someone who splits their time between coastal and country. How does where you live and travel shape what you curate for people?

S: I’ve always been someone who appreciates the aesthetic of where I am. Whether I’m in Jackson Hole or Hawaii, I naturally want to match where I am (in my own way) and learn about the local culture. Although I live in Sarasota, I’ve spent time every summer on Nantucket since I was born, which has definitely opened my eyes to a different style of dressing as well as decorating. Travel has become one of my biggest sources of inspiration, and has shaped my personal style and design perspective. Where you live shapes what feels normal to you, and travel opens your eyes to other ways of living. When I curate things for other people, it usually ends up being a mix of what feels local and inspired by what I’ve seen elsewhere.

C: Personal shopping has a reputation for being either very corporate, the department store kind, or very influencer- the LTK kind. Sophia’s Curations feels like neither. How would you describe what you actually do when you work with someone?

S: My approach is definitely personal. When I work with someone, I start by understanding their lifestyle, their goals, and what makes them feel good. My goal is to simplify the process, save clients time, and help them find pieces, gifts, or create spaces that feel authentic to them. Whether they need a little guidance or full-service support, I tailor the experience to each individual. 

Every client is unique, so what I do for each one is different. One week I might be helping someone plan outfits and pack for a trip. Another time, I can be helping someone find the perfect graduation gift, or decorating a room in their home.

C: You launched Sophia’s Curations very recently and it has had an enthusiastic response. What do you think people are actually looking for when they reach out to you? What’s the real need you’re filling?

S: I think we’re overwhelmed by choices and trends today.  I believe people are looking for someone they trust to help simplify the process and curate unique options and fresh ideas that actually feel like them. My goal is to help my client save time and feel great about themselves and their spaces. 

C: How has becoming a founder shaped your life? And even though every day looks different, what’s the one thing that always stays constant in your routine?

S: It has definitely made me more confident in trusting my own perspective. I’ve loved helping people find beautiful things, but building Sophia’s Curations pushed me to turn that passion into something real. It has shown me that sometimes the things that come naturally are often the things we are meant to pursue. 

My one constant is finding inspiration in everything I do. Whether I’m traveling, browsing local shops, or simply observing beautiful design around me, I’m constantly gathering ideas.

I picked up on a pattern listening to Sophia’s story. Her parents dressing her up as a kid. Her dad’s thirty years building beautiful spaces. Her mother’s effortless style and eye for home décor. The way she matches wherever she travels. The way she helps people feel “authentic,” and find pieces that are meant to be theirs.

The theme is Sophia’s eye, externalized. Her entire business is her taking something she has learned and practiced over the course of her life and turning it into something she gives to other people. She doesn’t separate categories the way the industry trains us to. Wardrobe, home, gifting, travel. To most people, these are different aisles of a store. To Sophia, they’re the same aisle.

“Those weren’t separate interests, but they all came from the same passion for helping people find beautiful, meaningful things.”

If you’ve been keeping up with my pieces, you’ll know I just released an essay on developing taste. The core idea is this: you don’t have to construct taste from nothing. You have to notice what you already have. Most people assume taste is bought, when really, it’s about learning to shape your style around your life, your travel, your body, your habits. People are drawn to Sophia because she has great taste, and on some level, they’re hoping to find a version of it for themselves. What most people miss is that taste isn’t a talent. It’s the accumulation of everything that brings someone’s world to life.

So ask yourself: what were you actually given, growing up, that you’ve never thought to call taste?

And if you’re looking at this from a branding lens, the way I tend to, Sophia’s business wasn’t built from a gap in the market. She didn’t sit down and decide that wardrobe, home, and gifting belonged together as a strategy. She noticed that her friends kept coming to her for outfit advice and help decorating a room, and realized those weren’t two separate requests. They were the same one. That’s a lesson for anyone building something of their own: stop looking for a gap to fill, and start looking at what people already keep asking you for. Reshaping the question may help you find your thread, the one that quietly connects everything you already do.

Taste is knowing the difference between wanting something and wanting to be the person who has it.

Taste is the ability to know what you like before someone tells you to like it.

Taste is not a personality trait. It’s a practice.

I want to talk about how to build it.

There’s a version of this essay that opens with a disclaimer- I’m not a stylist, I’m not a fashion editor, I don’t have a degree in this. I’m not going to write that version. What I have is something more useful: I have walked in your shoes. I spent years buying other people’s wardrobes before I figured out how to build my own. And I can tell you exactly where I went wrong, and exactly what changed.

In sixth grade I discovered preppy style and bought the whole costume- the J.Crew statement necklaces, the Kate Spade bags, the pearl earrings, the Vineyard Vines shep shirts, the Lilly Pulitzer shift dresses. Then I fell in love with The Vampire Diaries and switched to dark colors, henley shirts, vintage jewelry, tight dark denim. Then it was U of Alabama core. I bought cowboy boots, hats, ripped denim shorts, strappy tees, hot pink dresses. Every few years, a new identity. A new costume.

Here’s what I didn’t understand then: I wasn’t developing taste. I was trying on other people’s worlds and wondering why nothing ever felt quite like mine.

The shift happened when I moved back home to New York. This city has serious style. But it also has its opposite: women sitting at their desks, waiting for a brand drop to go live, refreshing the page, racing to buy the same thing as everyone else before it sells out. I watched that happen and felt something click. I had become a follower. And that’s not me.

Not everyone wants to be the bold, standout, all-eyes-on-me girl. That’s fine. That’s not what this is about. This is about owning your style. Whatever that looks like. The only version of style worth building is the one that belongs to you before it belongs to anyone else.

So how do you get there? You start where taste gets tested the most honestly: vintage.

Here’s why vintage specifically. My friend and I were talking about this recently and we landed on something true: buying vintage is a sign that you have taste because you are able to look at something old, separate from current trends, have a vision for it within your own wardrobe, and give it new life. There is no influencer telling you how to style it. There is no brand showing you a campaign of how it’s supposed to look. You have to figure it out yourself. That’s the whole point. That’s exactly what makes it the perfect training ground for building an eye.

It’s also, importantly, accessible. Vintage can be affordable. The Chaps by Ralph Lauren blazer I found recently looks like something that could walk a Ralph Lauren runway, but I paid $88 for it. The 1940s Japanese silk kimono I found in perfect condition. The J.Crew silk dress whose silhouette mirrors a vintage Dolce & Gabbana piece I’d been admiring. The runway is always looking backwards. Your job is to get there first.

But none of that is possible without the foundation. And the foundation is knowing yourself.

Step 1: Know Your Lifestyle

Before you walk into a single vintage market or open a single Depop tab, I need you to answer this question honestly: what does your actual life look like?

Not your aspirational life. Your real one.

Where do you go during the week? What do you do on weekends? Do you live in a city where you walk everywhere or a place where you drive? Are you in meetings, studios, markets, restaurants, classrooms? Do you travel somewhere specific often- a city, the country, the coast?

Style that doesn’t fit your life doesn’t get worn. It sits in your closet as evidence of the person you thought you were going to be when you bought it.

I live in New York. I walk everywhere. I go to gallery openings, dinners, vintage markets, creative meetings. I also spend time in rural and western towns. Places with horses and open land and a completely different energy. My wardrobe has to work for all of it. That’s why a western blazer makes as much sense in my life as a silk slip dress. They’re both true for me. The mistake isn’t buying things that seem contradictory- it’s buying things that have nothing to do with how you actually live.

Before you shop anything, write it down. Where do you go? Where do you want to go? What does a real week in your life look like? That’s your starting point.

Step 2: Know Your Complexion

Color is the first thing people see. Before the silhouette, before the fabric, before the label, they see color. And if the garment reads before you do, something is wrong. The piece is wearing you. You are not wearing the piece.

This is not about rules. This is about understanding what makes you shine versus what makes you disappear.

There is a whole world of color analysis, seasons, undertones, palettes, and I encourage you to explore it. I am a soft/true fall. My colors are warm, earthy, muted: tobacco, camel, forest green, blush, ivory, warm browns. When I wear them, people see me first. When I wear the wrong colors like cool grays, icy blues, and stark white, they see the clothes.

At a vintage market, color is your first filter. Before you touch the fabric, before you check the tag, you ask: does this color suit me? Not does it look good on the hanger. Not did I see someone wearing this on TikTok last week. Does it suit my complexion, my coloring, my face?

This single step will eliminate half of what you would have otherwise impulse bought. That is not a loss. That is the practice.

Step 3: Know Your Silhouette

Not the silhouette you wish you had. The one you actually have, and more importantly, what works with it.

I am curvier. I have a smaller waist and thicker thighs. Babydoll dresses make me look bigger than I am. I learned this the hard way, and I stopped buying them. That is not a limitation, that is information. The women with the most distinctive style are almost always the ones who have figured out exactly what works on their body and stopped second-guessing it.

Vintage especially requires this knowledge, because there is no model showing you how it fits on your body type, no size guide calibrated to your measurements, no stylist on the campaign telling you what to pair it with. You have to know. Will this jacket hit at the right place on my waist? Will this skirt work with my hips? Does this length make my legs look longer or shorter?

This is not about dressing to hide anything. It is about dressing so that people see you. And then notice what you’re wearing. In that order. Always in that order.

Step 4: Know Your References. Not Someone Else’s

This is the most important step. And it’s the one that requires the most honesty.

When you pick something up- anywhere- stop and ask yourself one question before you go any further: Do I genuinely love this, or have I seen someone wearing something like it recently and I want their life?

One of those is taste. The other is a costume.

I spent years buying into other people’s wardrobes. The preppy costume. The dark and brooding costume. The southern girl costume. None of them were wrong, exactly, but none of them were mine. The pieces I bought to belong to someone else’s world never became the pieces I reached for. They just accumulated. Evidence of all the versions of myself I was trying on.

Your references should come from inside your own attention, not from someone else’s feed. What have you always been drawn to? What images have you saved for years, not because they were trending, but because something in them felt true to you? What places have you traveled that changed how you see color, proportion, texture? What films, what art, what interiors have shaped the way you look at the world?

That is your reference library. Shop from it.

When I found the Chaps denim jacket that looks like the Ralph Lauren Spring 2005 runway, I wasn’t looking to recreate a runway look. I recognized it because I had been paying attention to that aesthetic for years. Military influences, American heritage, the western thread that runs through Ralph Lauren’s entire universe. The jacket was already in my reference library. I just found it in the physical world.

That’s what taste looks like in practice. You find things before they find you.

Step 5: Know Your Materials

Your eye is not only visual. It is tactile.

This is the step most people skip, and it is the step that separates the women who consistently find great pieces from the women who consistently find pieces that look good on the hanger and fall apart within a season.

Cotton, linen, silk, wool. Natural fibers- these are your materials. They hold up over time, they age well, they feel different in your hands than anything synthetic. Once you know the difference, you can feel it immediately. No tag required.

Synthetic clothing is the fast fashion industry's greatest trick. It costs them nothing to make, photographs beautifully, looks convincing on a rack, and falls apart within a season. I am actively phasing it out of my wardrobe. Not because of a rule, but because I have touched enough real fabric to know what I'm giving up when I settle for less.

At a vintage market, I go to the tag before I fully evaluate the piece. Not the brand tag, the material tag. If it says polyester, I put it back. If it says 100% silk, 100% wool, 100% cotton, 100% linen, I keep going. This filter, combined with the ones above, means that by the time I am actually trying something on, I already know it deserves to be in my wardrobe. The try-on is confirmation, not discovery.

One more thing about materials: price. I try not to let the price deter me from trying something on. A great piece at $200 that I wear for ten years is not expensive. A mediocre piece at $40 that I never reach for is not a bargain. Vintage especially rewards patience and willingness to invest in the right thing, because the right thing, at this point, is often irreplaceable.

The Gut Check

Before any purchase, vintage or otherwise, I run through these five things in order:

Does this suit my lifestyle? Will I actually wear it, given how I actually live?

Does this suit my complexion? Does the color make me shine, or does it make me disappear?

Does this suit my silhouette? Will it work with my body, or am I buying a fantasy?

Is this genuinely mine? Am I drawn to this because it’s true to my own references, or because I want someone else’s world?

What is it made of? Will it last, or am I paying for the illusion of quality?

Five questions. Every time. They will save you from more bad purchases than any trend report ever will.

A Note on Starting

If you’ve read this far and you’re thinking I don’t know my complexion, I don’t know my references, I don’t know what my style is- that’s exactly the right place to start.

You don’t need to have the answers before you begin. You just need to start paying attention.

Go to a vintage store with no intention of buying anything. Just look. Notice what stops you. Notice what you pick up and then put back down, and ask yourself why. Notice the fabrics you instinctively reach for. Notice the colors that make you say oh before you’ve decided anything.

Taste is built through that process. It is repeated, over time, with attention. Every store you walk through, every fabric you touch, every image that stops your scroll. That is the accumulation. That is the practice.

Diana Vreeland once said "Of course, one is born with good taste. It's very hard to acquire."

I respectfully disagree.

Taste is something you build. One intentional choice at a time.

Which of these five steps is the hardest for you? Why?

Her video appeared on my feed one afternoon and I stopped scrolling immediately. She had maybe 3,000 followers at the time, but her aesthetic was so fully formed, so entirely her own. It felt like stumbling onto something before the rest of the world discovered it. I followed her on TikTok and then went looking for her on Instagram within the same minute.

Not long after, she announced Down The Street. And then came an invitation to a pop-up in Southampton with Dolce Vita.

I made a trip of it.

There is something about meeting someone in person after following them online that either confirms everything or unravels it entirely. With Jamie, it confirmed everything. She is soft-spoken and warm, and her eye is exactly an extension of that- considered and thoughtful. Every piece at that pop-up had been chosen with a specific vision in mind, and there was a language running through the whole room.

I went home with two works of art for my walls.

Down The Street exists because Jamie believes something fundamental: that original art belongs in every home, not just the ones with the right connections or status. She opens the door to a category of art that most people never knew existed.

Meet Jamie Wyskiel of Down The Street.

Caroline: Down The Street operates like the opposite of traditional art gallery. When you're sourcing a piece, are you thinking about the woman who's going to hang it, and if so, who is she in your mind?

Jamie: Working in more traditional roles within the art world before starting Down The Street was incredibly valuable in many ways, one of them being that it showed me what I wanted to do differently. I quickly realized that buying art was purposefully made to seem intimidating, cold, and inaccessible. That never sat well with me.

Celia, my co-founder, and I wanted to create an experience that felt personal, warm, and approachable, making art feel welcoming rather than intimidating. People often ask how we decide which pieces are in our collections, and the answer has always remained consistent from the start: if Celia and I would not hang it in our own homes, we would not source it for Down The Street.

We have never approached things through the lens of some abstract customer; we source with ourselves, our friends, and the creative women around us in mind. For Celia and I, understanding our customer has always been quite instinctual because we know what we hope she feels when she discovers a piece…it is exactly what we hope to feel ourselves.

C: Your Substack doesn't read like a brand newsletter. It reads like someone who genuinely can't stop thinking about where creativity comes from, how to find the best vintage on eBay, what Kendall Jenner has on her coffee table and why it matters. At what point did the writing become part of the business rather than separate from it, and do you think it would exist if you weren't selling anything?

J: After finishing my MA in the History of Art, I found that I missed writing tremendously. For years, writing had been such a large part of my life, and I loved having a space to indulge random curiosities and spend time with the things that interested me.

Indeed, most of what I write about now on my Substack has very little to do with the business at all. While I completely understand why many brands have started to use the platform as a marketing tool and a way to drive sales, that has never been the purpose for me. Mine is simply a reflection of what I am reading, noticing, collecting, researching, and thinking about at any given moment. In fact, I suspect many of my subscribers do not even know Down The Street’s business exists, now that I think about it.

Whether Down The Street existed or not, I would still be writing. It is difficult to imagine ever giving it up! More than anything, I just feel very lucky to have found a community of people who are interested in many of the same things I am.

C: "Open Windows" drops every Thursday like a magazine issue. That's not how art is sold anywhere. Where did that rhythm come from, and what does it do to the relationship between the buyer and the piece when there's a cadence, an anticipation, a next time?

J: Until this May, Down The Street has operated through larger, curated seasonal collections (which we love and will continue to do – don’t worry!). Over time, though, we realized our community did not want to discover and collect art only a few times a year… they wanted more!

This all began when one evening at our favorite wine bar on the Upper West Side, I randomly floated the idea to Celia of trying weekly capsule drops throughout the summer. Her response was immediate, enthusiastic, and along the lines of: “We can do whatever we want!” One of the greatest privileges of building something of your own is the ability to remain responsive — to listen to your community, trust your instincts, and pursue an idea the moment it feels right.

As we spent the rest of dinner tossing around names, Open Windows emerged. We both knew it was right the moment it was said aloud. It felt like such a natural extension of Down The Street, bringing to mind summer evenings with music drifting through open windows, long dinners with friends, and that feeling of possibility and newness that seems to arrive each year with the season.

C: Down The Street is not only selling art, it’s selling the experience of becoming someone who lives with art. There's a moment that happens when someone who has never bought original art buys their first piece. What does that moment look like for your customers, and do you think about it when you're writing, sourcing, advising?

J: Someone’s first purchase is such a meaningful moment because it comes with a realization: art is not just something to admire from afar, it is something you can actually live with. One of my favorite parts of Down The Street is giving people an opportunity to cross that threshold and seeing that shift happen in real time.

That is something we have always tried to emphasize at Down The Street. From the beginning, we have photographed works in our own apartments, old Brooklyn brownstones, fields with horses, boats, and countless other places that feel lived in, familiar, and nostalgic. Art is ultimately about connection (maybe cliché but true), and we have always felt that people are far more likely to connect with a piece when they can imagine it as part of their own lives.

When I am sourcing or advising, the question I always come back to is simple: can you imagine living with this for years? Do you want to see it when you wake up each morning? If the answer is yes, that is usually a far more compelling reason to buy a piece than any conversation about value, strategy, or trends.

C: How has becoming a founder shaped your life? And even though every day looks different, what's the one thing that always stays constant in your routine?

J: More than anything, I think becoming a founder has made me more curious and more attentive. Inspiration seems to appear everywhere: a typeface on a menu in Brooklyn, the faded color of a building in Lisbon, the paper wrapped around flowers at the Upper West Side farmer’s market, a beautifully set table with antique silverware in Puglia….the list goes on.

I find myself paying much closer attention to the details and asking why certain things work so well. It has made me more aware of the thought and intention behind the things we encounter every day, and I think that mindset has carried into nearly every aspect of my life.

As for routine, every day truly does look different, but one thing never changes: making time for the people I care about (PJ said something similar last week, and it rang very true for me as well). I feel incredibly lucky to have the co-founder, friends, and family that I do. They inspire me constantly, and no matter how full my schedule becomes, time spent with them always leaves me feeling grounded and reminded of what matters most.

I noticed a common thread in Jamie’s answers: attention. She pays attention to the typeface on a menu, the colors in her surroundings, the small details that make something whole. And that same attention is what you feel when you step into the world of Down The Street.

I can tell you from personal experience that it isn’t just an art platform. It’s a world. One that’s been built detail by detail: the frames chosen as carefully as the works themselves, the lamps casting a gentle glow, the antique-like tags and hand-tied ribbons wrapped around every order. Nothing is an afterthought.

That’s the point. Art was never supposed to live behind velvet ropes and in glass cases. It was always supposed to be just down the street.

Life has a way of placing the right people in front of you when you least expect it. Looking back, I’m still a little amazed at how it all connects. The decisions you make without overthinking, the yeses you say on instinct, and how each one quietly sets you on a path toward something better than you could have planned for yourself.

A job led to a collaboration, a collaboration led to an invitation, and an invitation led me to a lunch table in the summer of 2024 where I sat down next to PJ. That was that. One of those moments you don’t fully appreciate until later, when you look back and think to yourself “of course. Of course that’s how we met”.

PJ has this warmth that’s completely effortless, a smile that’s genuinely infectious, and a quiet confidence that makes everything she says feel worth listening to. We became fast friends, and I’ve had a front row seat ever since to watch her build something really special.

PEEJ pr is her consultancy, her name on the door, started at 25. Watching her grow into one of the most sought-after PR voices in this industry has been one of my favorite things to witness. The determination, the taste, the way she shows up for every single client. It's all there, every single day. I go to her for advice. I admire how she moves. I’m endlessly proud of her, and I can’t wait for the opportunity to work alongside her one day.

This is the story of how PEEJ pr came to life, and why it was never really a question.

Caroline: You started PEEJ pr at 25 with your name on the door. A lot of young women have the skills and the vision but can't get themselves to take the leap. They're waiting to feel ready. What actually made you go? And do you think you were ready?

PJ: I started PEEJ pr during a period where pretty much everything in my life felt like it was changing at once. Personally and professionally, I found myself reevaluating a lot and asking what I actually wanted the next chapter to look like.

I remember sitting outside at a tiny café in Paris with my best friend Coco. She looked at me and said, “If not now, when?” Whether it was her wisdom or the wine, it felt incredibly convincing at the time. I phoned my dad the next day, and the rest was history.

I look back on my career and don’t regret a single moment before starting my business. Every role taught me something. Those years gave me my relationships, my network, my understanding of the industry, and probably most importantly, my work ethic. Even if I worked at Krispy Kreme, I’d somehow find a way to make it my entire personality.

So was I ready? Not at all.

But I think that’s the point. If I had waited until I felt completely ready, I probably never would have done it.

At a certain point, you stop waiting for certainty and start trusting yourself. I didn’t have all the answers then, and I certainly don’t now. But I knew I was willing to work hard, figure things out, and give it everything I had.

That ended up mattering a lot more than feeling ready.

C: You named the consultancy PEEJ pr, which is just... your name. No vague acronym, no sleek invented word. That feels like a deliberate statement. What made you put yourself so front and center, and what does it mean to have your name on everything you're building at 26?

P: To make a long story long, PJ is short for Phyllis Jean, which is my grandparents’ names combined: Phyllis and Gene.

My mama is also PJ (the OG Peej), and it’s one of the greatest honors of my life to be named after her. My family has shaped so much of who I am and how I move through the world.

Growing up, I never thought much about my name. Whether it was Baby P, Little PJ, or whatever variation people came up with that week, it was always just short and sweet. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate not only how distinct it is, but how much it represents. It’s tied to my family, my values, and the people who made me who I am.

When it came time to start my consultancy, there was never really another option. No frills, no fancy name, no fluff. Putting my name on it felt like a commitment to show up every day and to build a business rooted in relationships and trust.

What clients get when they work with PEEJ pr is a very hands-on approach. I absolutely love being in the weeds, and I don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all mindset to PR.

C: PR has a reputation for spin, noise, and getting your name out there fast. But the way you talk about it, strategy, positioning, story, sounds more like an editor or an architect than a publicist. How do you actually define what you do, and how did you arrive at that definition?

P: It’s funny because a professor once told me I was in the wrong major because I had the eye of an architect.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what he meant, but years later it makes perfect sense. I’ve always been drawn to both the big picture and the details that bring something to life. Whether I’m planning an event, building a brand strategy, or dreaming up a partnership, I’m constantly thinking about the elements others might overlook. And if something feels off, I can’t ignore it until I figure out how to fix it.

That mindset is exactly what drew me to PR in the first place. I’ve never viewed it as simply getting someone’s name out there. To me, it’s about understanding who a brand is, what they stand for, and why people should care. The placements, events, partnerships, and founder features are all outputs. The real work happens long before that.

I’ve always approached PR with a long-term mindset. The strongest brands aren’t built overnight, and neither are reputations. The best results come from consistency, a clear point of view, and thoughtful decisions made over time.

I think PR gets a bad reputation sometimes because people assume it’s all smoke and mirrors. I’ve never seen it that way. At its best, PR is about relationships, trust, and storytelling. It’s about helping the right people discover the right brand at the right time in a way that feels authentic to who that brand is.

I always say I want to feel as internal as I am external. I want to understand a founder’s vision, their goals, and what they’re actually trying to build.

When people ask what I do, I usually say I’m the founder of a PR consultancy, but truthfully, I think of myself as a strategic partner. Yes, we handle media relations, partnerships, events, and everything in between. But at the end of the day, we’re helping brands build awareness, trust, and a reputation that lasts.

C: Most people have no idea what a PR consultancy actually does day to day. They picture red carpets and press releases. Walk me through what you actually do for a client. What does a week look like, and what does a win look like?

P: No two days are the same, which is one of the reasons I love what I do.

When people think of PR, they tend to picture events, red carpets, and glamorous dinners. And yes, those moments absolutely exist. But the reality is that most days I’m sitting at my desk with approximately 37 tabs open and a minimum of three coffees.

A lot of the work happens behind the scenes. I’m pitching editors, building strategies, reviewing assets, coordinating partnerships, brainstorming ideas, planning events, and constantly communicating with clients. It’s a lot of organization, a lot of relationship building, and a lot of problem-solving.

And while everyone loves a big headline or a major placement, I’ve learned that wins come in all shapes and sizes. Of course it’s exciting to land a story or secure a meaningful partnership, but sometimes a win is helping a founder articulate their story more clearly or watching a long-term strategy start to gain momentum.

At the end of the day, my job is really about helping brands connect with the right people and build something that lasts. The placements are wonderful, but they’re usually the result of a lot of thoughtful work happening behind the scenes first.

Whenever someone asks me what I do all day, I usually laugh and say, “What don’t I do all day?”

C: For founders listening who are trying to figure out if they need PR, when is the right time? And what's the difference between a brand that's ready for it and one that isn't yet?

P: I absolutely think every brand can benefit from PR, but I don’t think every brand is ready for it right away.

The brands that see the most success are the ones that have taken the time to figure out who they are first. They know what they stand for, they have a strong product, and they can clearly articulate why they exist.

The last thing a founder needs is another person telling them they’re the next big thing before they’ve figured out who they are.

I always tell people that PR is an amplifier. It’s not going to create the story for you. It’s going to help more people hear it.

If you’re still figuring out your positioning, your product, or your point of view, I’d spend time there first. But if you’ve built something you’re genuinely proud of and you’re ready to start putting it in front of the right people, that’s usually when PR becomes incredibly valuable.

The brands that tend to struggle aren’t necessarily bad brands. They’re often just too early. They haven’t quite figured out what makes them different yet.

At the end of the day, the best PR relationships happen when a founder knows who they are and trusts a publicist to help tell that story to a wider audience.

C: How has becoming a founder shaped your life? And even though every day looks different, what's the one thing that always stays constant in your routine?

P: Becoming a founder has taught me to trust that things have a way of working out exactly as they’re meant to.

I often think that little 13-year-old PJ would be incredibly proud of the life I’m building for myself. Not because it’s perfect, but because I get to wake up every day and do something I love so much. I feel incredibly lucky to say that.

I’ve navigated some of the biggest changes of my life and a lot of figuring things out. Building this consultancy happened alongside much of that. It’s been both empowering and incredibly humbling, but more than anything, it’s shown me what I’m capable of.

Life is far too short to spend it in environments, relationships, or situations that make you feel small.

As for what stays constant, it’s always my people. No matter how chaotic work gets or how different every week looks, my family and friends remain my anchor. They’ve been my biggest supporters through every version of myself, and I truly wouldn’t be here without them.

Every founder I interview leaves me with a new way of seeing something. PJ shifted how I think about branding entirely. Her professor wasn't wrong when he said she had the eye of an architect because it's exactly what makes her so good at what she does. Because branding, done well, is architecture. It's not just a logo or a product. It's a world. And the strongest brands are the ones whose details are so considered, so cohesive, that you want to live inside them. The clothing you wear, the objects in your home, the collar on your dog- it all seeps in. I think about The Vampire Diaries. I was in 8th grade, so consumed by that show that I started dressing like I existed in it. Moody colors, tight silhouettes, chestnut riding boots, antique jewelry. I wasn't buying products. I was trying to inhabit a feeling. That's what great branding does. It doesn't just sell you something. It makes you want to belong to it.

You don't have to be a founder to take something from PJ's approach. I worked in PR, and I can tell you honestly that we did not operate the same way. I remember blasting editors with shopping list emails, five brands in one pitch, no throughline, no context, no real reason any of it mattered. I couldn't tell you why someone needed a phone case for Valentine's Day, but there I was, sending it anyway. Shoot until something sticks. It felt sloppy because it was. PJ is the antidote to all of that. If you're in PR and want to do work you're actually proud of, the framework is simple: know the brand before you pitch the brand. It's their reputation on the line. You are a strategic partner and an amplifier, not a megaphone. There is no one-size-fits-all. Every brand has a distinct story, and your job is to understand it so well that when you do put it in front of the right people, it lands exactly the way it should.

Thank you for being here for another Founder Friday. Getting to amplify the women I feature and pull back the curtain on what actually goes into building something in the fashion industry is something I don't take lightly. My hope with every piece is that it finds you at the right moment, that that you walk away inspired, and with something new to carry. See you next Friday!

Mila and Jelena were everything Madison promised. You can’t miss them, honestly. There’s this alluring, magnetic quality about them in the way they carry themselves, the way they dress, the way they make you feel known. Within hours it felt like the four of us had been doing this for years.

We spent the weekend the way all good girls trips should go. Eating, drinking, shopping, staying out late and soaking up everything Paris had to offer. But what made it feel like more than just a great girls trip was the conversation. The four of us, Mila, Jelena, Madison, and me, are all founders of our own brands. We love art, culture, fashion, and collecting beautiful things, itemizing the world around us and figuring out how to take a piece of it home.

So naturally, we talked about what we were building. We talked about our visions for our brands, and about the things that keep you going when it gets hard. It was one of those weekends that reminded me why I do what I do.

Madison’s story is coming here soon, and I promise you’ll want to hear it. But first, I want to introduce you to Mila and Jelena of Izel New York.

C: The name "Izel" means unique, and your pieces are also named after cities like Cairo, Paris, Ibiza, and Brooklyn. What's the story behind those names and how do places inspire your designs?

M & J: We’ve always been drawn to the idea that places hold energy the same way objects do. The way people move through them, moments that stay with you, a feeling you can’t fully explain but keep returning to. We grew up collecting those impressions before we even knew how they would eventually shape what we create. When we started designing together, we realized the pieces we were drawn to had that same quality. Each ring and ear cuff carries a distinct emotional and visual language, translated into fine jewelry.

The Cairo ring came first. Its geometry carried a sense of permanence found in ancient places - structures that have endured time and were meant to outlive trends. We didn’t set out to name it Cairo, it just became obvious. Ibiza came from a different place entirely. A sense of freedom and ease without effort. Brooklyn was about power without apology. Paris was about the tension we’ve always loved: softness and strength existing in the same breath, as if they’ve always belonged together.

That’s why the link motif - something that connects, that holds, that moves but doesn’t break - became the heart of everything we make. These pieces are named after cities, but they’re really named after feelings.

C: You two describe yourselves as living in "duality". How does being twins actually show up in the creative process? Do you ever disagree?

M & J: As twins, there’s a shared understanding between us that’s hard to explain, but it’s always been there. The creative process feels less like collaboration and more like an extension of our identity. But we’re not the same. Jelena moves toward structure, precision, and restraint. Mila is more intuitive, fluid, and emotional. That contrast is where everything we make comes from.

Of course, we do disagree, sometimes passionately. But those moments are rarely about the direction itself. It’s more about refinement, and four years of never settling is proof of it. You can feel both of us in every piece.

C: Izel is made-to-order with an 8-week production process, which is very intentional in a world of fast fashion and instant gratification. Was that a hard business decision or was it always non-negotiable?

M & J: It was non-negotiable. In our world, speed and craftsmanship rarely coexist. The moment you start cutting corners to meet demand, you’re already creating something diminished. And our clients feel that.

Every Izel piece is assembled by hand in New York by master artisans using techniques that cannot be rushed or replicated. The process requires time, precision, and attention at every stage. We never wanted to compromise that for convenience. For us, luxury isn’t only the final piece, it’s the discipline, patience, and care embedded in its making.

There’s a quote we often return to: “Trust in your craft enough to admire it, study it, perfect it, breathe it. Never stop getting better at whatever it is that you love to do.” That mindset is deeply woven into how we approach Izel. The eight week production process isn’t a limitation we’re trying to overcome. It’s a standard we’re committed to protecting.

C: The open chain-link is your signature motif. It’s fluid, yet still architectural. Did that come naturally or did you go through a lot of iterations before it clicked?

M & J: It came naturally, but it didn’t arrive easily.

From the beginning, we were drawn to the chain - its ability to connect, but also what it symbolizes: continuity, tension, and movement. It felt like the most instinctive place to begin building our design language. But what we were really shaping wasn’t just a chain. It was a system of form and feeling.

The open chain-link took nearly 100 iterations to refine. We worked through proportion, weight, scale, millimeters at a time, studying how each adjustment changed how the piece lived on the body. Everything had to feel cohesive, intentional, and emotionally consistent across the full collection. Fine jewelry we would wear every day and never want to take off.

C: You started designing together in 2020 and spent years refining before launching. What almost made you quit, and what made you keep going?

M & J: Everything almost made us quit. At different points, for different reasons.

The iterations were relentless, and there were moments where we genuinely didn’t know if the design would ever arrive. It was the gap between what we could see in our minds and what existed in the world. It takes a certain kind of belief to stay in that in-between space for years without rushing it or diluting it.

Then there was the manufacturing. Finding artisans who could execute at the level we required - the polishing, the assembly, the diamond setting. Not many could. We kept searching and refusing to compromise the vision. And then there was the industry itself. Fine jewelry has always been rooted in status, legacy, hierarchy. But we were building something centered on feeling - what a piece brings into your life, not what it signals to a room. That shift is not always immediately understood.

But the deepest challenge was internal. There’s a particular fear that comes with putting your art into the world. The fear of being seen. Of being judged. Of exposing something that came from somewhere very personal inside you.

What made us keep going was that we never saw Izel as something we were forcing into existence. It always felt like something we were uncovering. Every iteration, rejection, and pause was part of refining it into its final form. We weren’t building something temporary. We were building something meant to last.

C: How has becoming founders shaped your life? And even though every day looks different, what's the one thing that always stays constant in your routine?

M & J: Becoming founders has changed us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We didn’t fully understand what we were stepping into when we started.

The most unexpected part has been watching what the pieces do to the people who wear them. There’s a moment we’ve witnessed again and again - someone puts on an Izel piece and something shifts. They feel more like themselves. That’s not something we anticipated, and it’s become the deepest meaning behind what we do. Fine jewelry has always been tied to identity, but we’ve come to understand just how intimate that connection really is. A piece of jewelry becomes an extension of who you are or who you’re becoming.

And in ways we didn’t expect, making these pieces has done the same for us. We’ve discovered ourselves through this process - our creativity, our resilience, and our sense of worthiness.

As for what stays constant in our routine: our coffee dates. It’s where we return to each other and to the gratitude of what we’ve created. Something we’re endlessly proud of.

Mila and Jelena’s responses to these questions are so insightful. But the two things that struck me most were their approach to production and the quiet resilience it takes to build a brand.

I love the fashion industry. It’s dynamic, inspiring, daring, and alive. But it can also become exhausting fast, especially when it feels like the world is always moving on before you’ve had a moment to appreciate what you have. Pre-spring, spring-summer, cruise, pre-fall, fall, winter. There’s always a new season, a new drop, a new reason to buy. And in order to move that quickly, corners get cut. On quality, on craftsmanship, on intention. Which makes you wonder: is it actually worth the price?

That’s why I admire what Mila and Jelena are doing. Choosing not to overproduce. Choosing to slow down in an industry allergic to stillness. Creating something designed to outlast a season, a piece you carry through life, not just through a few weeks of wear.

And then there’s the back end, which most people never see. The tech packs, the material sourcing, the endless search for the right manufacturer, the sampling, the money spent before a single dollar comes back. That process is hard for anyone building a brand. It’s even harder when you’re committed to quality over speed, because real craftsmanship takes time and expertise that is genuinely difficult to find.

None of that is meant to discourage you. If anything, the opposite. If you have a vision and something worth sharing, you’re already in the right place. It won’t be easy and there’s no instant gratification, but it will be the most transformative thing you ever do.

Maisie and I met last August on a shoot for Editorialist magazine. I had been asked to assist on set last minute and took the job without hesitation, one of those small decisions that turns out to matter more than you expected. She was the creative force behind the entire production that day. Selecting the pieces, styling them to her vision, shooting the campaign herself. Calm, certain, and completely in control of the image she was building.

She was also 24. Same age as me.

There’s something quietly inspiring about watching someone your age move through a room like they’ve already figured out exactly what they’re doing, not with arrogance, but with a kind of clarity that makes you want to sharpen your own. That’s what Maisie does. She edits, she removes the filler, and she makes what’s left feel inevitable.

If you’re not already following her, open her Instagram after you read this. Her aesthetic says everything before she even speaks, simple, considered, and more impactful than anything trying twice as hard.

Maisie Prince is a New York-based stylist and creative director whose work spans brand campaigns to editorial shoots. Her philosophy is restraint, which, in an industry addicted to excess, that’s a more radical position than it sounds.

C: You move between shaping a brand’s visual identity and styling real women with very different lives and bodies. How do you approach commercial styling versus personal styling without losing your point of view?

M: They’re actually very connected. Whether I’m styling a campaign or a person, I’m always thinking about clarity. In commercial work, the goal is to create a world around a product or a brand idea, so every decision has to support that narrative. With personal styling, it becomes more intimate and emotional, but the instinct is the same: edit until something feels effortless and true. I don’t really believe in over-styling. The strongest images and the strongest wardrobes usually come from restraint.

C: Your commercial references feel very precise and elevated. When a brand comes to you with an aesthetic that doesn’t naturally align with your own taste, how do you balance their identity with your eye?

M: Styling isn’t about imposing yourself onto a brand. It’s about understanding what makes them distinct and then refining it. I think the best creative partnerships happen when there’s trust on both sides. A brand hires you for your perspective, but part of the job is listening closely enough to translate their language into something sharper, more aspirational, more emotionally resonant. Even when the aesthetic is different from what I’d personally wear, I can still find elegance in it.

C: You’ve described your approach as “editing out the noise.” In today’s commercial landscape, where brands constantly want more content, more product, more everything, how do you defend simplicity?

M: I think restraint is incredibly powerful visually. The brands that really endure usually have a very clear identity. They’re not trying to say everything at once. In campaigns especially, one strong image will always outlast twenty forgettable ones. Of course there’s pressure now to constantly produce, but I think part of my role creatively is protecting the integrity of the image and making sure there’s intention behind every frame.

C: Commercial styling can feel very hierarchical, where people assume you need years assisting under major names before leading campaigns yourself. At what point did you feel confident owning your perspective creatively?

M: I don’t think confidence arrives all at once. It builds through experience and through developing a real point of view. Early on, I realized that what mattered most wasn’t trying to imitate how other stylists worked, but understanding what I responded to visually and learning how to articulate that clearly to a team. Once you can communicate an idea confidently and execute it consistently, people trust you to lead.

C: Have you ever styled a commercial campaign that created a beautiful image visually, but didn’t necessarily reflect how you think women want to dress in real life? How do you navigate that tension?

M: Of course. Fashion imagery and real life serve different purposes sometimes. A campaign can be theatrical or highly conceptual because it’s creating emotion, fantasy, desire. That doesn’t necessarily mean every look translates literally into someone’s wardrobe. But even in more conceptual work, I still want the woman to feel believable. I never respond to images that feel cold or overly constructed. There has to be humanity in it somewhere.

C: You’re expanding beyond styling into creative direction and brand image-making. What pushed you toward wanting a larger role in shaping a campaign visually?

M: Styling naturally evolved into creative direction for me because I’ve always thought about the entire image, not just the clothes. I care deeply about casting, tone, location, pacing, references, the emotional atmosphere of a shoot. The clothes are one part of the story, but they’re not the whole story. The most compelling campaigns feel cohesive in every detail, and I became increasingly interested in shaping that bigger picture.

In an industry built on excess and constant attention-grabbing, what does it actually cost a young woman to build a career on restraint?

More than you’d think. And less than you’d fear.

Maisie’s story isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing less, better, and having the conviction to defend that position in a world that never stops pressuring you to produce more, say more, show more. Most of us know that exhaustion intimately. The constant scroll of metrics, the anxiety around engagement, the feeling that if you’re not constantly visible you’re already falling behind.

And here’s Maisie at 24, building quietly and deliberately on her own terms.

We have different styles, she and I. But that’s exactly why she inspires me. She’s a reminder that there isn’t one way to build something meaningful, and that the most powerful creative decisions are often the ones that involve removing something, not adding to it. Watching her work made me want to trust my own instincts more. To let what comes naturally actually flow, instead of second-guessing it into something safer.

I think that’s what the best creative friendships do. They don’t make you want to be someone else. They make you want to be more fully yourself.

If you’ve been following along, you know I’ve been on a slow journey toward cultivating my personal style. One of the steps I wrote about was building a private Pinterest board, just for yourself, to start noticing patterns in what you’re actually drawn to. Once I did that, my next move was finding the small, bespoke brands worth knowing about. The ones creating pieces you won’t see on everyone else.

Here are a few I’ve been loving lately.

Finishing Touches: Kroon

My phone knew before I did. I’d been pinning knitted headpieces for weeks when Kroon showed up in my Instagram ads.

The brand is Luxembourgish, founded by sisters Laurene and Charlotte Kroon, and everything is handmade. I ended up checking out with three pieces. No regrets.

This chic multicolored cap

This beaded ballet bun

These beaded fringe earrings

Playful Pants: Jeanerica

I posted this note on Substack a few weeks back that quite a number of you seemed to resonate with. Next thing you know, I’m on the hunt for cool pants and stumbled upon Jeanerica. Not limited to denim, they have some really fun pieces you should check out. These are my personal favorite inspired by my Pinterest board.

These painter pants

These corduroy pants I snagged for fall/winter

These dark beige chinos

Conversational Pieces: Grover Rad

Grover Rad is one of those truly unforgettable brands. Lizzie Grover Rad, the LA-based art collector and interior designer, makes clothing the way she thinks about interiors: texture, pattern, and art wound up in a collection of beautifully crafted pieces.

In my article on personal style, I talked about pinning art, architecture, and things that pull at something, aside from clothing alone. Lizzie’s work is exactly why. It doesn’t feel like fashion so much as wearable collecting. Here are a few of my favorites.

This linen coat

This satin dress

These corduroy pants

Chic Activewear: An Action A Day

I’ll admit I don’t have a Pinterest mood board that inspired my hunt for new activewear, but I met my sister for a hot yoga class this past winter and she was wearing the cutest outfit by An Action A Day. Needless to say, I steal it from her often. Here’s what we’re loving.

These pure wool pants

These blue wool leg warmers

This off-the-shoulder sweatshirt

Purses with Personality: Mélisse New York

A friend of mine recently started a bag brand, and it's exactly the kind of thing I love to shout about. Mélisse New York makes pieces from deadstock fabrics she hand-sources herself, cut and sewn in NYC, in limited batches. When a style sells out, that's it, it can't be reproduced. Which makes finding something you love there feel like genuinely special.

When you know what you're drawn to, the right things have a way of finding you. I hope this gave you something worth bookmarking. These aren't brands you'll find in every newsletter or on every “it-girl's” page, and that's exactly why I love them. Part of developing your own style is learning to source it yourself. Consider this just a small head start.

I remember the first time Tahlia came up on my TikTok For You page in the summer of 2024. She was a ball of light and energy, equipped with the most eccentric yet chic outfit, and a knowledge of art she was able to communicate so simply that even someone like me could follow. It’s because of Tahlia that I expanded my own interest in contemporary and modern art, because she made a once intimidating industry feel approachable and exciting.

A year and a half later, I was hiring her.

There’s something very 2026 about finding your art advisor on TikTok. And yet, there she was, standing in the doorway of my NoHo apartment, bubbly and eager, ready to help me turn four walls into something that actually felt like me.

When you walk into my apartment, I want you to feel like you’ve stepped into a Nancy Meyers film. A striped headboard, silky pillows, brushed wool blankets, a cloud of a couch, sterling silver lamps, fresh flowers, wood accents, and everything in natural whites, pastel greens, and baby pinks. But my walls were flat. My apartment needed some whimsy.

We talked for what felt like hours that first day. She examined the space, the colors, my taste, and then just asked me plainly- what do you envision? I gave her my references: Ralph Lauren in the Hamptons, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Brentwood home, every set in every Nancy Meyers movie ever made. She caught the vision immediately.

In the days that followed, I had a deck full of sourced pieces. But nothing was quite right. That’s when Tahlia suggested a custom piece, and introduced me to the artist Caroline Pinney, an emerging name whose work I’m now having commissioned for above my bed. Tahlia assured me I was making a true investment, and I believed her, because that’s what she does. She listens, she understands, and she guides you through a world that has spent a very long time trying to keep people excluded.

Meet Tahlia Sisney: The Art Girl.

Tahlia is an independent art advisor, writer, and self-described purveyor of nice things, based in New York and working everywhere. After building her advisory practice from the ground up, she identified a gap in the infrastructure available to art professionals and built Opusfolio, a platform designed to modernize how advisors operate. Her work sits at the intersection of art and technology, and somehow makes both feel deeply human.

Caroline: You went to Sotheby’s Institute, which is about as credentialed as it gets in the art world, and then you immediately started making the art world less exclusive. Was that a reaction to what you saw inside, or something you always believed before you got there?

Tahlia: I think it was both. I grew up around art collecting and antiquities, so art never felt intimidating to me. It felt intellectual and natural and part of the human experience. But when I entered the contemporary art world professionally, I realized very quickly how inaccessible it can feel to people who didn’t grow up in industry. There’s this unspoken language and gatekeep-y culture where people almost feel rewarded for making others feel like they don’t know enough to participate.

When I started at Sotheby’s Institute, I became even more aware of that dynamic. I was surrounded by incredibly smart people, but I also noticed how many conversations centered around limitation. When it came around to graduation time, my peers talked a lot about how impossible the industry was, how few opportunities existed, and how difficult it was going to be to break in without a boatload of nepotism or capital backing them. Meanwhile, all I could see was opportunity everywhere. I think that mindset shift is what kickstarted my entire career. While other people were waiting to be invited into rooms, I was emailing people directly, asking questions, introducing myself, following up, showing up to openings, studying dealers, reading constantly, writing about everything, creating opportunities for myself before anyone formally gave me permission to. During school, I treated every assignment seriously and engaged with my professors. I exploited every single opportunity I had at my fingertips. I sat on a leadership council, worked as a graduate assistant, interned for an advisory, curated my first exhibition, traveled internationally for fairs, and immersed myself as much as I could in the ecosystem without actually receiving a paycheck for something (yet). The goal here was greatness, and I wasn’t afraid to pursue it.

What Sotheby’s Institute really gave me was confirmation that the art world is not untouchable. It’s built by people, and if it’s built by people, it can evolve. That realization became the foundation of everything I do now. Through my writing, content, advisory practice, and now Opusfolio, my goal is to make people feel welcomed into the art world instead of intimidated by it. Art shapes culture and preserves history. It deserves a future that is bigger, younger, more transparent, and more inclusive than what we’ve had in the past.

C: The art world runs on relationships that take decades to build. You’re young and you built yours fast. What did you do that older advisors weren’t doing?

T: I think I move with a level of urgency and openness that a lot of people in the industry underestimate. For some background, the art world traditionally rewards patience, hierarchy, and slow access. But I realized early on that relationships are built through genuine curiosity and consistency, not just time. Also, I was on a time crunch. I was a twenty something post-grad with an “entrepreneurial spirit,” as a teacher told me once, and I needed to make money. I wasn’t going to and didn’t have the opportunity to wait ten years to introduce myself to people I admired. And frankly, that’s not who I am anyways. I want to hustle and be important and be in rooms where people are like “Wait, how old are you again?” Being successful at a young age is always something I’ve strived for. So with that being said, yeah, I was sending the cold email. I was asking someone to coffee. I was following up after fairs and making sure the directors and sales associates recognized me at the next one. I spent hours reading interviews with major dealers and studying how they built influence. I’ve spent a good amount of time studying people like Larry Gagosian and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Picasso’s dealer. Their business success fascinates me, but their ability to build trust, conviction, and cultural momentum around artists before the rest of the world fully understood the vision is really what Im inspired by. They were not passive observers, they literally the shaped ecosystem.

I also think younger collectors and artists respond to me well because I approach the industry differently. I never want to perform exclusivity. I want people to feel comfortable asking questions. I want new collectors to feel excited instead of intimidated. I want artists to feel understood. Funny enough, the human approach is a very effective method.

Social media and the digital age also accelerated relationship building in ways for me that I think the older generation still probably can’t fathom. I understood early that my content was not separate from credibility, it was an extension of it. Substack, my videos, my commentary, all of it became a way for people to understand how I think before ever actually meeting me. By the time that new client or new collector actually spoke with me, there was already trust established. But ultimately, relationships only last if you maintain them with integrity. I took that seriously from the beginning and still do. I want to be friends with my clients and build a relationship, this is the long game, not short. And I think people feel that I genuinely love the work and love building that legacy for them, not just the image of the industry.

C: You’re advising clients on what art to buy, which is deeply personal, emotional, and driven by ego. How do you protect your eye when a client is convinced they know better?

T: One of the most important things I’ve learned is that advising is not about overpowering someone’s taste. It’s about refining it, contextualizing it, and helping them understand why they respond to certain work in the first place. Art is very emotional and it should be emotional. A collection should feel like an extension of someone’s psychology, intellect, memory, and story. My role is not to erase that. My role is to guide it with perspective and long-term vision.

There are definitely moments where clients become attached to something for the wrong reasons though: hype, social validation, market noise, ego etc. In those moments, protecting my eye means just being honest. I would rather lose a sale than advise someone toward something I fundamentally don’t believe in. That’s not really my style. At the same time, I never approach clients from a place of superiority. I think the best advisors know how to listen first. Sometimes a client is reacting to something emotionally before they have the language to explain why. My job is to uncover that and help them build a collection that still feels intellectually cohesive over time.

I also think my background helps me tremendously here. Coming from a family with roots in taste and antiquities taught me that truly great collections are built through conviction and scholarship, not trend cycles. The market changes constantly. Taste changes and evolves. But a strong eye is developed through study, curiosity, and instinct. This is the currency I provide to my clients. At the end of the day, BWYL, buy what you love.

C: Who in the art world took you seriously before you had the credentials to demand it, and what did that do for you?

T: I owe an enormous amount to the people who believed in me early, especially my first clients. I’m 24 and still learning so much. I’m by no means an art historian or a dealer extraordinaire. But those first few clients I had, they trusted my vision completely. They allowed me to source for them, advise them, create something beautiful and meaningful, and most importantly, document that process publicly as I was growing my business. That level of trust changed my life.

I also had mentors and industry figures who responded to my ambition before I had traditional authority. I think people can sense when someone is genuinely obsessed with the work. I was never casually interested in this industry. I studied it relentlessly. I read constantly. I researched dealers, artists, market history, institutional movements. I treated every opportunity as meaningful and as if it was an opportunity and I showed up prepared. In New York, you never know who you’re going to meet and you always have to be ready.

I think that matters more than people realize.

There’s also something powerful about being young and not yet conditioned by limitation. I wasn’t approaching people thinking, “They’ll never respond.” I approached them believing there was always a possibility of connection. That optimism created opportunities that probably would not have existed otherwise. Maybe it’s my midwest charm, I don’t know.

Every person who took me seriously early on gave me more than opportunity, they gave me confidence. They reinforced the idea that expertise is not only built through age. You can reap the same success through commitment, discipline, taste, and the willingness to immerse yourself fully in the work.

C: You went from advising on art to building the tech infrastructure for art advisors. Most people pick a lane. What made you realize the tool didn’t exist, and that you were the one who had to build it?

T: Because I was living the problem every single day.

When I started scaling my advisory business, I realized almost immediately that there was no infrastructure designed specifically for art advisors. Everything felt so fragmented and buggy. I was juggling spreadsheets, PDFs, inventory tracking, client management, invoices, artist information, fair schedules, shipping coordination — all across disconnected systems that were not built for the way art advisors actually operate. It was maddening and I was losing deals and definitely NOT scaling.

The irony is that the art market is a multi-billion dollar industry, yet so much of its infrastructure still functions manually or through outdated systems. Advisors are expected to operate at an incredibly high level while piecing together operational workflows themselves.

I kept thinking, how has nobody solved this yet?

At a certain point, I realized I could either continue struggling through the inefficiency or build the solution I wished existed. That became Opusfolio.

The coolest thing about it is that I didn’t build it from theory. I built it from my own experience. Every feature came from an actual operational pain point inside The Art Girl. because of that, the response has been incredible. Since implementing Opusfolio into my own workflow, I’ve quadrupled my revenue in three months because I finally had systems that supported growth instead of slowing it down. So, that’s super validating.

I also think this moment in the art world requires a new generation of builders. Not just advisors or dealers, but people willing to modernize the industry itself. The future of the art market cannot rely exclusively on tradition. Like Ive said, It needs infrastructure that supports scale, transparency, accessibility, and global connectivity. That’s what I want to help create and foster.

C: The Art Girl is about accessibility. Opusfolio is about infrastructure. They sound like opposite entities. One opens the door for those who want start their collection and the other builds the back office. How do you hold both of those identities at the same time?

T: To me, they’re actually solving the same problem from opposite directions. The Art Girl exists because I wanted people to feel invited into the art world. I wanted someone with no background in collecting to suddenly realize they were capable of understanding and participating in contemporary art. I wanted to remove the intimidation factor and replace it with curiosity and excitement. But accessibility means very little if the professionals inside the industry don’t also have the tools to grow sustainably. That’s where Opusfolio comes in. Art advisors are often operating as invisible architects behind the scenes of the market. They manage relationships, logistics, strategy, sourcing, education, placement, and long-term collection building, often without adequate infrastructure to support that level of work. If advisors are empowered, organized, and able to scale properly, the entire ecosystem becomes healthier.

So one side of my work is focused outward on cultural access, and the other is focused inward on operational evolution. But both are rooted in the same belief: the art world has the potential to grow far beyond its current structure.

I don’t think the future of the industry belongs exclusively to institutions or legacy power players anymore. I think it belongs to people who are willing to build community, share knowledge, modernize systems, and create new entry points for participation. That’s the work I care about most.

I read back over Tahlia’s responses more than once, in awe of the founder she is. There is something about the way she moves through the world with urgency, with conviction, and without waiting for anyone to hand her a seat. I find it deeply inspiring and, honestly, a little clarifying.

She built her own doors instead of waiting for someone else’s to open. That’s exactly why I started this series.

I’m a young founder too, building a brand from the ground up, and figuring everything out as I go. I came up in fashion, working in PR, alongside influencers and founders, pouring my energy into other people’s visions. But somewhere along the way I looked up and realized the success I was building wasn’t mine. I had a vision of my own, a creative and entrepreneurial spirit that deserved its own outlet, and a story worth telling.

Founder Friday exists because I know I’m not the only one who felt that way.

Every week I’ll be sitting down with a young woman who decided to stop waiting and start building, sharing what she learned along the way. Not because the path is easy, but because seeing someone who looks like you do it anyway makes it feel possible.

See you next Friday.