the letters are en route

 

Hey First name / there,
 

The first batch of letters are officially en-route! Almost 200 of you signed up from across the UK, US, Australia, Berlin, Nigeria, Copenhagen, France and the Netherlands, which was such a delight to see. (If you haven't signed up yet and would like to receive February's letter, I'll be opening a limited number of additional slots next week.)

 

The theme of January's letter is ambition. 

 

For 2021, I have no new year's resolutions except to rest and play more. I want to take more afternoons off, watch more films, tinker around with paint and clay, and have more do-nothing Sundays. I realised that as an ‘ambitious’ person, it's my default setting to go hard after my career/money/growth aspirations. If I don't make it an explicit goal of mine to rest, I might not do it. I learned the hard way last year when I experienced burnout in September 2020, and had to take 3 weeks (unpaid) sick leave. Which led me to ask - is ambition always a good thing? We tend to use it as a compliment - ‘Oh wow. You’re so ambitious!' - but sometimes it feels like a vice. Here's a snippet from the letter.

 

"Ambition has no end. It's a treadmill with no off button. With each achievement comes more prestige, more influence, more money. Likes, comments, RT's, congratulatory DM's, and promises to ‘grab coffee once lockdown is lifted’. But eventually, the dopamine storm quiets. Your feed moves on. You return to a constant, not entirely different from life pre-achievement. 

 

"Is this it?"

 

And so the treadmill continues. Onto the next goal. As soon as you get through one door, another one appears. You climb and strive and pitch and pivot and workshop and email and climb and strive and pitch and pivot. Indefinitely.”  

 

Some thought-starters on ambition

Essay: The Snarling Girl by Elisa Albert. 

Article: Who's Afraid Of Ambitious Women

Book: Double Bind: Women on Ambition

Article: The Infantilising Ways We Talk About Women's Ambition

Article: Do Women Lack Ambition?

 

What's happening at the moment?

We were featured in the Chips and Dips newsletter as a ‘anti-hustle culture workwear brand’ to watch, and our IRL letter subscription was featured in The Sonder And Tell newsletter. I'm a huge fan of both, so was very chuffed to spot these.

 

Samples of the first garments are still work-in-progress. We're a few iterations down and are definitely getting closer to perfecting the design, which is really exciting. Then, it'll be time for fit testing. The next big hurdle to clear after that is sourcing an EU/UK-based responsible garment manufacturer who can produce the pieces at a reasonable cost.

 

We're also re-designing the website. The current one is so ugly and lacks clarity - but I guess that's the beauty of continuous improvement. Hoping to have the new design live by mid-Feb.

 

As always, thank you for your support! I'm seriously grateful.

 

Kind Regards,

Shope

 
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