What We Decided
The thing about losing someone from a project you care about is that it forces you to ask the question you’ve been avoiding—does this actually matter to me? Caro’s departure wasn’t surprising, but it made everything else—the late-night conversations, the half-formed ideas, the constant uncertainty—suddenly unavoidable.
Hannah was in Berlin for Fashion Week that spring, and we sat up one night just talking. Not planning, not strategizing. Talking. About what we were doing, why we were doing it, whether it was worth the effort. There was a rawness I hadn’t expected, the kind of honesty that happens when you’re tired and stop performing.
Then there were these scattered conversations after that. Drinks with Paulchen. Time with Katja. Random meetings with whoever was around and thinking about the same things. Nothing formal, just people thinking out loud about what this could actually be. And somewhere in there, something shifted. Not a business plan or a set of goals. Just a quiet realization that we believed in it. That we wanted to keep going.
So we made plans. More work, new people, different approaches. Different thinking, different writing, different everything. But that part was almost secondary. The real thing was looking at each other and realizing we actually cared.
I don’t know how everyone else experienced that moment. But that summer felt different. We kept working because we wanted to, not because we had to. And I think that’s the only thing that ever mattered anyway.