My ancestors appear in my dreams. The women particularly whisper in my ear: "you have to be the first." And I was. The first woman in our lineage to get on a flight alone. First woman to live alone. First woman to attend university abroad. First woman to challenge familial expectations. And finally, first woman to start a business, instead of living inside a grey office that eroded the very creativity and drive my ancestors were instilling in me.

But before Silver's Wind, before the panels and the events and the girls who now feel like family, there was a version of me most people never saw.

I was the girl folding clothes at Ardene, cleaning changerooms, restocking shelves for minimum wage. I was the girl working multiple jobs at once because one was never enough. I was the girl behind the counter at Starbucks who had coffee thrown at her by a stranger and still had to finish her shift with a smile. I was the girl everyone told to just get a government job because I could, because it was safe, because it was stable, because that's what smart girls do when they don't have a safety net.

I watched the women in my family depend on men to live. I watched them shrink themselves to fit inside someone else's life. I watched their ambition get folded up and put away like something that didn't belong in the room. And I decided, very early, that I would never live that way. Not because I didn't love them, but because I loved them too much to repeat it.

When I was nine years old, my little brother needed surgeries for his cleft palate and our family needed help. So I did what I knew how to do: I went to the thrift store, I bought beads and string, and I made bracelets. I sold them to my teachers at recess. I was nine. That little girl is still running this company.

Silver's Wind is not a jewelry brand that happened to build a community. It is a community that happens to sell jewelry. Every few months, I host free events for young women. No cover, no catch. They get dressed up, they walk into a room I built for them, and they have a dignified blast. They leave feeling seen and celebrated and connected to women they didn't know that morning. The jewelry funds those rooms. Every bracelet you buy puts another woman in a room where she's reminded of what she's worth.

Every collection is created with the same question: how do I want her to feel when she puts this on? Not just how does it look. How does it feel. Because I've been the girl wearing nothing expensive, working the worst shifts, dreaming about a life that felt so so far away. And I know that sometimes the smallest thing on your wrist can remind you that you're still becoming who you're meant to be.

I don't come from money. I don't come from connections. I come from women who were never given permission to want more and wanted more anyway. Silver's Wind exists because real ambition can't be contained. Ever.

This is only the beginning.

With love, Suvi