I’m back in Durham, and absorbing all that I’ve learned from my travels. Though I was mostly on vacation I couldn’t help but get some perspective on my work as I met inspiring people and had inspiring experiences along the way.
I am increasingly finding peace with the idea that in building my passion I am on the right path and, one way or another, it will work out. As you may have heard in the tone of my last letter, I left for vacation with a good deal of anxiety about the road ahead, the gist of which is: I have a unique and beautiful apparel concept and first pieces that I want to share, but I don’t know how to get it out there in a way that makes sense in such an uncertain apparel market. The impatient woman in me has wanted to rush ahead with what exists in the apparel industry and to try to find easy solutions to doing something different. Yet there are unlikely to be easy solutions to doing things differently in apparel.
I profited on my trip home to tour notable, beautiful San Francisco boutiques and tailors to help me better understand what exists, where things are going and what is and isn’t working. AND, most importantly, to get a sense for where I may find the solutions for my company. I’m not ready to share these hunches yet here, but I would love to share an idea I have been carrying with me since my trip that I found pretty inspiring.
I went with my dad to a yoga class taught by a beautiful goddess of a woman, Rebecca Urban, aka Bex. Wisdom poured out of this woman. One thing in particular resonated. She said each day is about the simple act of taking action to move something forward. You are probably sitting there thinking, “No shit. Action each day. Thanks, Reid. Duh.” But for some reason this was very profound for me. It allows for a little bit of respite from all the fear and anxiety about how what we do or don’t do will affect us. All we have to do each day is move a meaningful action forward and support ourselves, keep ourselves physically and mentally healthy to do this everyday. Events each day can and will unfold unexpectedly and it is our job to breath through them and keep moving forward through the waves and the currents to impact the world with our beautiful footprints.
This bit of advice is hugely important as I move to explore doing something with my business that is really different and challenging in unchartered territory by me and perhaps anyone else. Just breath and move actions forward each day.
Your support means the world to me.

Riding Jacket. Color #2: Camel herringbone with blue and orange window panes.