Tailored By Time

There was a time in my life when fashion was like breathing.

It wasn’t something I analyzed or pursued. It was just there—woven into my days in quiet, beautiful ways. In the way my mother adjusted her blouse before stepping out, her fingers pausing for a moment at each button, polished and pale like tiny

 moons. They weren’t flashy—just smooth, slightly cool to the touch, catching the Provençal morning light with a soft gleam. I remember how she handled them with care, as if even small things deserved tenderness.

Style lived in our silences. In the rustle of cotton skirts at the market. In the scent of linen sheets dried in the open air. In the warmth of terracotta tiles under my bare feet and the sound of heels echoing through a tiled hallway. It was in the way a scarf was tied just so, or how the folds of a well-loved dress fell into place without effort.

I was raised in the South of France, in a place where the world still moved slowly. Where shutters were left half-open to let in the changing light, and rooftops glowed like copper coins at dusk. Beauty was not a spectacle. It was a rhythm. A way of noticing. A way of being.

My becoming was quiet—thread by thread, I was being spun. Not just in taste, but in soul. A soul like raw silk: delicate yet strong, shaped by softness, moved by light.

The women around me wore clothes that seemed to breathe with them. Nothing felt synthetic or loud. There was wisdom in their simplicity. Their fabrics were raw, honest. Linen that wrinkled and whispered of real life. Cotton that still smelled faintly of the fields. Soft silks that didn’t scream for attention, but instead draped with quiet elegance. I grew up learning that real style doesn’t come from trend—it comes from texture, and truth.

I became enamored with fabric that felt alive. Organic materials that changed slightly with each wear, as if they remembered you. Linen that softened each time it touched water, warming to your skin like an old friend. Hemp blends that carried the weight of the sun. Tightly woven cottons that held the shape of your body for a moment longer, like a memory you could touch.

I didn’t yet have the language for it, but what I loved was the honesty of those fabrics. The way they held space without shouting. The way they moved with the body, not against it. You can’t hide in real fabric. It asks you to come as you are.

But somewhere along the way, I abandoned all of that.

I told myself I had to be sensible. I traded beauty for utility. I studied science. I translated documents for my father. I memorized formulas and wore what was practical. Fashion felt like a luxury I hadn’t earned. It was too soft. Too dreamy. Too me. And so I folded it away like a dress I loved but no longer felt I had the right to wear.

Then came New York.

The city was fast, thrilling, electric. I moved there with ambition packed into every seam. But the pace was brutal, and softness was mistaken for weakness. People wore armor—shoulder pads and heavy bags and eyes that didn’t meet yours. And yet, somehow, amid all the noise and structure, I kept hearing the quiet music of Provence in my mind.

Even while buried in lab work, I found myself sketching silhouettes in the margins of my notebooks. I would catch myself drifting—thinking about how a sleeve might fall like water or how a blouse might feel against a bare shoulder. I’d walk into fabric stores just to run my hands across the bolts. I missed the feeling of natural fibers—the way they cooled your skin in summer and warmed it in winter. The way they aged, gracefully, as if becoming more human with time.

It took me years to admit: fashion wasn’t a distraction. It was the way my soul communicated.

Every image in my mind had color, movement, and weight. I wasn’t dreaming about clothes. I was dreaming about presence. About what it means to feel seen by your own reflection. About what it means to feel soft in a world that is so often hard.

We live in a culture obsessed with the new—with speed, noise, and perfection. But some part of me still aches for the opposite. I believe in slow fashion, not because it’s ethical (though it is), but because it reflects something deeper: a gentler way of being. A way of dressing that doesn’t hide you or try to fix you—but honors you, as you are.

French women re-wear their clothes for decades—not out of lack, but out

of respect. Their coats are tailored, but lived-in. Their shoes scuffed in all the right places. Their perfume lingers, never shouts. Style, for them, is not costume. It’s character. It’s restraint. It’s rhythm.

And I’ve come to believe that you don’t have to live in Paris to live that way. Elegance is not a postcode. It’s a way of standing still in a rushing world. It’s how you stir your coffee. How you roll your sleeves. How you whisper beauty back into your life—even when no one’s watching.

I don’t have a degree in fashion or a list of famous names behind me. But I do have a voice. A vision. A sensitivity I’ve spent years apologizing for, but no more.

I’m building a life that feels like home—one texture, one story, one carefully chosen garment at a time. And maybe—just maybe—that little girl who once breathed in lavender and light, who traced the buttons on her mother’s blouse as if they held secrets, is finally ready to speak.