SARPHATIPARK
There is a little apartment overlooking Sarphatipark in Amsterdam.
An old antique writing desk that travelled with me from London.
A younger version of myself sat there with pencils and paper, long before I had children, long before I became a yoga teacher, and long before HOTRODDS existed.
There was no plan.
No business.
No collection.
Just an overwhelming need to create.
This drawing came from instinct alone. It wasn't drawn to become a product, or even to be seen. It was simply the quiet expression of a moment in my life.
The unexpected lines, the softness of the white, and the visible marks of the coloured pencils all belong to that time. They are traces of an artist following curiosity rather than direction.
As I drew, I was unknowingly deepening my connection to myself, to my creativity and to the memory of my late brother. Art became a conversation that didn't need words.
Years passed.
Life changed.
I became a mother.
I became a yoga teacher.
HOTRODDS was born.
And somehow, without planning it, those same pencil lines would one day become fabric, wrapping around women walking through cities all over the world.
Who could have imagined that?
Certainly not the woman sitting quietly at that little desk overlooking the park.
Perhaps that is life.
You follow what feels true today, and only years later do you understand why.
One step after another.
One drawing after another.
One conversation after another.
Until, looking back, the path seems so obvious.
Yet when you were living it, there was no map at all.
I never imagined that a quiet afternoon at an old writing desk overlooking Sarphatipark would one day become a pair of leggings. That following my instinct to create would lead me to yoga, to healing, to HOTRODDS, and to a life I could never have planned.
Sometimes the smallest acts of truth become the biggest chapters of our lives.
You simply have to keep taking the next step.