Before + After = Now
Year 8 – the final year: Before + After = Now
In 2024, the last year of this collection, I wanted to let before and after guide what designers would collectively imagine in the now. It is also a concept reflected in my main focus in this final year: the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games! As a matter of history, this will be the third time Paris has hosted the Olympics – 1900 and 1924 being the previous two times.
So, while our current fashion trends lean toward fringe, bows, romantic flowers, and sheer openwork stitches (we are definitely in a very feminine, post-Barbie-movie moment), I personally am in a bittersweet mood as I write this.
It has been a pleasure and honor to work with these amazing worldwide designers and hand dyers for the last 8 years – I have grown through all the twists and turns, yet like the rest of the world, I am on pins and needles wondering exactly where we are all headed. As a result, I decided that now was the right time for me to let this designing and creative chapter end in order to make room for (hopefully!) another to begin. As I leave the warmth and comradery of these summer make-a-longs, I am confident that something else creative is waiting for me right around the corner, and the true friends I have made along this path over the last eight years will stay with me long after the make-a-longs end in September.
This is not good-bye, just a brief respite while the creative winds of change swirl about me. I cannot help but believe that we are all in the same spot. Lasting, positive change may take time, but there is something better right around the corner. Let that hope be your making North Star … along with any of the wonderful designs in this year’s final collection.
