But Milan, like any honest city, doesn’t let you pretend. Brutalism has always been described as raw concrete and hard edges, but what it really stands for is truth. Structure exposed. Nothing hidden. And that is exactly what Milan revealed to me, not in its buildings, but in the reality of trying to build something there while running a business here.

You can’t stretch yourself across continents without the right foundation. You can’t build something lasting on something that isn’t stable. So I pulled back. Not because the dream changed, but because it needed to be built properly.

It has now been almost two years since I stopped travelling. A self-imposed pause. No constant movement, no romantic back-and-forth between cities. Just staying still long enough to face what actually needs to be done. Building a team that can stand on its own. Creating structure where there wasn’t enough. Putting in place what brutalism, in its truest sense, demands: a solid base. I underestimated that part.

Opening stores is visible. It feels like progress. Building a team is slower, quieter, and far less glamorous, but it is the only thing that makes everything else real. And so Milan shifted.

It is no longer a place I go to. It is a place that lives in how I see. I spent three months there over the course of a year, walking without urgency. Courtyards hidden behind heavy doors. Markets where form follows function without trying to impress. Tables, textures, small details that carry a certain weight because they are not overdesigned.

There is a kind of restraint in Milan. A confidence that doesn’t need decoration. And within that restraint, there is also imperfection, surfaces that age, materials that show use, edges that are not corrected. That same honesty that we see in batik, where nothing is ever exactly aligned, where the hand is always visible. That connection stayed with me.

It made its way into this collection, not as something literal, but as a way of working. Less correction, more acceptance. Less control, more trust in the process. Letting things be slightly off, slightly raw, because that is where character comes in.

The dream is still there.
To have a home there, not just a footprint.

But next time, it will stand on something stronger. A team that can carry the business without me needing to be everywhere at once. A structure that allows growth without collapse. Something that, like brutalism at its best, is honest in its construction and built to last.

Some dreams don’t disappear. They just wait until you are ready to build them properly.