#013 - [ FINDING THE WHY ]
so if this week reminded me of anything, it’s that direction isn’t something you find alone… it’s something you return to through people.
sometimes when i get really deep into the rabbit hole of building this brand, i end up working so hard that i lose sight of the overall direction, and recently between traveling and then coming straight back into the hecticness of the studio i felt that happening again. it wasn’t tunnel vision about what the brand is or how to execute the work, because honestly that part feels clearer than ever. it was tunnel vision about something quieter but way more important: the why. why did i start this in the first place, and what part of me am i actually trying to protect or prove by building it?
it’s been refreshing this week because my childhood friend brandon came to visit, and the timing couldn’t have been better. we’ve been friends for almost twenty years, which is long enough that he knew me before any of this existed, before i was thinking about drops and campaigns and manufacturing, and honestly one of the reasons lumiyre exists at all is because i watched someone close to me succeed at building a brand from the ground up. in his case it was blanked studios, and seeing him do it made it feel real to me in a way nothing else did, like proof that you can actually take an idea and make it stand on its own.
spending time with him this week did something i didn’t expect, which is it brought me back in multiple directions at once. it brought me back twenty years ago to the version of us that didn’t have any of this pressure, and it also brought me back three years ago to the early days of lumiyre when things were fragile, everything felt uncertain, and he was one of the people helping me find direction when i didn’t have the language for it yet. it reminded me that the brand didn’t come from a marketing plan, it came from relationships, influence, and the kind of belief you get when someone close to you shows you it’s possible.
another big thing this week has been trying to merge my personal life and my work life back into tune, because before i left for asia i had a routine that felt solid and grounding, and coming back with jetlag has made it harder than i expected to find that rhythm again. i think that disconnect was a big part of why i was crashing out earlier, because when your routine breaks you don’t just lose sleep… you lose the small systems that keep your mind quiet, and suddenly everything feels louder than it should. but slowly, day by day, it feels like things are coming back into alignment, and it’s reminding me that discipline isn’t just about productivity, it’s about stability.
and then the climax of this last week was this shoot on friday. it was different in a way that made me genuinely proud. we actively didn’t want models for this, because we didn’t want the images to feel like fashion content… we wanted them to feel like life. so we asked our supporters, you, to come in and bring someone important to you for a connection-focused shoot, where the subject wasn’t styling or posing, but the way two people naturally exist around each other.
this shoot is for something we’ve been holding onto for a long time → [ SPLIT WISHBONE ]
it’s a wishbone that can be broken into two different pendants meant for two different people, and the part that makes it feel alive to me is that it reconnects through a magnet, like a physical reminder that connection isn’t only about distance, it’s about return. it’s simple when you say it fast, but the symbolism hits if you’ve ever been separated from someone you care about, whether by time, travel, conflict, or just life moving too fast.
this piece took over a year to prepare, and i’m honestly excited in a way that’s hard to explain without sounding dramatic, because it feels like more than a product. it feels like a clean answer to the “why” i’ve been struggling to articulate lately. i started this brand because objects can hold meaning, and because the best things we design aren’t just worn, they’re a shared experience. so if this week reminded me of anything, it’s that direction isn’t something you find alone… it’s something you return to through people.
