I feel like in life, you are on the right track if you are headed towards expansion rather than contraction. Being in business now for over ten years, there have been highs and lows, and it is interesting to look back and see what worked and what didn’t work and what we could’ve done better. Because, let’s face it, we all could’ve done better, even in those things that we excelled in. I always liked the story of Michael Johnson when he smashed the 200m world record at the Atlanta Olympics in 19.32 seconds. And he looked at the race on how much faster he could have gone because he had a slight stumble at the beginning of the race that left that question in his mind. I feel that is an interesting analogy to life, in terms of no matter how good something is, it can always improve. I like to look at that from a positive point of view in the sense that I know I can always improve if I am striving to do so.

In regards to expansion, I feel I am in my best frame of mind mentally and spiritually when I am gearing towards new and bigger goals that further my purpose in life, as opposed to sitting back and resting on my laurels. Of course sometimes you have to cut the fat, so to speak, and streamline things. But that can fuel that expansion, if you know the right things to cut and the right things to keep. It’s definitely a process, but at this stage 10+ years in, I feel hungrier to expand and be the best version of myself and build the best brand I can. Who could blame one for having contracted a little over the past couple years? But now I am looking to expand again.

What does that look like? Well I have always tried to think big and set lofty goals, and now is no different. I’d love to open a store in NYC again and also in Miami at some point. Having learned a lot from our first store in Soho and also taking cues from our Melrose flagship store in LA, I feel like things will be a more evolved experience this time around.  It saddened me to close our Soho store at the time we did, but I still feel it was the right move for us in that moment, as we refocused our efforts more on building our wholesale business back then. And that was another area we contracted in over the past couple years. Just based on the precarious nature of the retail market across the globe, we decided to just focus our efforts on direct-to-consumer. We are now working on building back up our wholesale footprint as well. I think we have learned a lot and how to strike the right balance for our brand. We are also in the process of lining up more collaborations and on top of that, I am expanding the product offering into new product lines like denim and leather as well. I set out on this journey to create a lifestyle brand, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

Life is all about create, and if you work towards your goals each day and create on them you are gonna make some progress towards it. Persistence and consistency is the key. Just showing up again and again and doing the things that worked. I even have aspirations of doing more stuff in my place of birth, Australia. Now I don’t like to harp on about what I’m “gonna do,” but I do like the idea of expansion. And I feel if you are in that frame of mind, the sky is the limit really. The only person in your way is yourself and the idea that you can’t.