The soft launch of a new life

An update on where I’ve been, what I’ve packed and who I’m becoming

Somewhere between March and June, I disappeared a little.

Not in a dramatic way, not in a "posting a Notes app farewell" sort of way, but quietly. Life got full. I was busy building what I’ve wanted for years: my own space. After years of shifting between cities, suitcases and little studios, I finally had a place that felt mine. Between choosing paint colours, running after deliveries and trying to stay on top of work, weekintrend fell silent, but I didn’t.

And then, something strange happened. Quietly, without fanfare, a childhood wish of mine came true. I got what little Sophia used to scribble in the margins of school notebooks: a job in fashion. In London.

I’m still catching up with that sentence. London has been in my heart since I was nine. I studied there, built a life there, left, came back, left again. But the version of London I’m about to return to feels different. This time, it is not just a place where I dreamed of working in fashion, it’s where I will, and with that return, another countdown begins.

In three months, I turn thirty.

I do not quite feel twenty-nine yet. Maybe because people often assume I am younger. Maybe because I spent my twenties in a strange dance between independence and return: living alone as a student, moving back home, chasing freedom, only to want the comfort of being looked after again. I have lived in-between places, in-between versions of myself, for so long that the idea of arriving somewhere still feels foreign.

But here I am. Settling into a home that is mine. Moving back to a city that shaped me. Holding a job that once felt impossible, and wondering quietly: what does it mean to turn thirty when you still feel half-formed?

Naturally, I have started thinking about clothes. I always do, when I do not know how to feel.

I do not yet dress like someone in The Devil Wears Prada, nor do I embody the slick, thirty-and-thriving vision from 13 Going on 30. My daily uniform is still a rotation of jeans and white shirts or blouses, paired with ballet flats, boots or well-worn sneakers. But my approach is shifting, I hear my mother’s advice more clearly now, buy less, but better. Choose the pieces that last. Find your classics and wear them.

I am learning to invest in things that speak to who I am becoming, not just who I have been. A trench that makes me feel composed, even when I am running late. A blazer that works in both Milan and London. Silver or white gold hoops that make me feel finished. A bag that quietly says, I have places to be.

There is also the quieter symbolism: the agenda I insist on carrying even though I mostly live by my colour-coded iCal. The growing desire to wear fewer sneakers and feel a little more put-together. And the eternal, still-unfulfilled quest for the perfect haircut, something that looks like I know what I’m doing, even when I don’t.

I am not expecting thirty to be a transformation. It is not a makeover. I do not suddenly want to be someone else. But I do feel the urge to choose more intentionally. To honour the version of myself who dreamt boldly, and the version who now finally gets to live some of those dreams. Perhaps style is just another way of practising that kind of self-respect.

So, here we are. A little older, hopefully a little clearer. Three months from thirty, and no idea what that really means, but at least I know what I want to wear.

If you're still here, thank you! I have missed writing to you.

What milestone are you approaching and how are you dressing for it?
Reply, forward, share, or just ponder it next time you open your wardrobe. I’ll be back next week.

With love,
Sophia