This week, leading up to the Style Swap, Sarah and I discussed the theme for November. Collective. It is not only fitting for the event, but fitting for how I came to be SFC. While I only started this summer, the path to SFC began almost 20 years ago. In my early 20s, I graduated from cosmetology school and made a list of all the top salons in Nashville, Tennessee. I walked into the top salon and was hired on the spot. In my years there, the owner’s best friend would come in, and I was drawn to her fashion and warmth. In time, she presented me with one of my first clients, her baby boy. Every 10ish weeks, the three of us would talk about whatever he was into at the time and find ourselves chatting more after the cut about our adult selves. I left that salon, but they still came to me. I eventually left that salon, and they still came to me, and then I started coloring her hair. In that time, my husband started taking virtual Japanese lessons and told me about a great family in his class. I was curious. One evening, before class started, I heard a voice say, “Hey!” It was her and her family! That class led my husband and me on our path moving here, and they were our biggest cheerleaders. She and her son were among my last appointments before I moved, and they were the first to visit me in Japan. Then one day, she sent me a DM on Instagram telling me to check out this event in Tokyo. It was the Style Swap. What she didn’t know at the time was that I was looking for an internship for my university requirements. I clicked on the link and read about the Swap and who it benefits. I felt led to this space and thought I would send a message to Sarah. She emailed me back immediately! She was, in fact, crafting a contract for a potential intern. Twenty years have led me to this point. 20 years of building a relationship and one moment of magic. So yes, I am excited about the Swap, but it is because this was the thread of the sweater I kept pulling until it led me here. In working with Sarah, I have not only had access to her wealth of knowledge but also her collective. Sarah has a great collection of people who are business owners, magic makers, and artists. If you are reading this, you are in her collective. If I am writing this, then I am in her collective. I don’t think we are all in this collective by accident. Is it a higher power? Is it magic? Are we all just loony? Maybe, yes to all three. But I am one highly favored, magical, mad woman.

Twenty years in the making

My paci