Here we are. I am looking back at the steps I have taken and the prints they’ve left in the sand with as much awe as my heart can hold. My birthday was last month. I just turned 32. I had always had this idea of what my thirties were going to be like – successful, hard-working, reaping years of what I had sown. But there is one word I had not realized would be this prominent, peaceful. My thirties are peaceful. There is a surprising gentleness to growing out of your twenties, something so soft about the calmness that has settled in my life. I now am more certain than ever of the path I want to tread, and there is not a doubt in my mind that it is mine.

A couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to start my own brand. I’ve worked in the creative field my entire life, and fashion, for me, was a natural continuation of that. I knew exactly what I wanted it to be, what I wanted to call it, how I wanted it to look. I had thought of everything, almost everything. One thing you don’t realize until you’re working hands-on on manufacturing clothes is how ecologically harmful manufacturing is. Up until that moment, I had not realized that there was more to clothes than their design and the fabrics that go into making them. I had planned every part of my brand, yes, but I did not take account to have it be something I believed in beyond it being something I found beautiful. Looking at the production process and the materials going into making these clothes, I realized just how harmful these materials were, how most of them had more hidden plastics than any of us ever knew or guessed.

I have always felt equal parts guilt and passion towards my fashion career. How could I pursue a career in making more clothes when manufacturing too much clothes was our biggest problem in the fashion industry? But also, how could I sit back and watch as fashion became nothing but a quick scheme to hop on the next trend and make the cheapest most sellable clothing possible, mindless of how ecologically damaging it was?

So, I paused the project. I decided I still had more to learn. My brand was a product of love, and I wanted it to meet the world lovingly as well. After a resolution to study sustainable fashion and endless hours figuring out how I was going to leave my whole life behind to do that, I was set. I got my masters. I came back home. It was time to start over again. Funny thing about rebuilding your life up from the ground, if you let it, it grows for itself. It is a soft current following where you lead. So is love, and with enough love, anything can come to life. So here I am, pursuing the one thing I have ever been sure of, again. With all the growth and peace I’ve acquired.

I accompanied a good friend on a visit to a local clothing factory last week for a project she’s working on. I sat and watched as the women cut up the fabric, dyed it, and set it to dry for stitching. Their hands stained with dye; these women droned on with so much intent. I could not help but think of how resilient they were. And here they were, working in our factories with materials sourced from our land yet going unnoticed. Here we are, growing our own cotton and employing our own women and doing nothing with it. This visit, timed with my 32nd birthday, felt like a sign from the heavens that I start my brand again. Here, in Egypt. Ethically sourced and produced, the way that I believe is right.