The Vanity of Control

There was a time when I believed that if I could just get everything right — the angles, the lighting, the cut of the dress, the placement of the headline — then perhaps I could control the narrative of my own life. Death was a shadow at the edge of the room, something to be acknowledged only in passing, like a poorly dressed guest at a party. I was too busy editing the world to consider its impermanence. In my youth, death felt like a failure, a crack in the perfect veneer of accomplishment. I avoided mourning as if it might stain my pages.

I once told a young editor that grief was a private matter best handled off the clock. How naïve that seems to me now. At the time, I thought I was being strong, even pragmatic. But really, I was just afraid. Afraid of the messiness, the unpredictability, the way sorrow doesn’t follow a grid.

The First Cracks

It was the loss of Isabella Blow that first made me question my own rigidity. Her death was not just tragic — it was defiantly untidy. She was too brilliant, too full of life, too much. And yet, she was gone. I remember sitting at her memorial service, surrounded by millinery and madness, and realizing that the world did not revolve around deadlines or spreads.

I tried to honor her in the only way I knew how — by putting her brilliance on a page, by giving her the final bow she deserved. But no layout could contain what I truly felt. For the first time, I questioned whether my life’s work had been about celebrating life, or simply about managing its presentation.

A New Kind of Seeing

As I’ve grown older, I’ve found myself less interested in perfection and more in presence. I’ve watched people I love struggle with illness, with aging, with the slow unraveling that time brings. And I’ve begun to see death not as an enemy, but as a companion — one that walks beside us, reminding us to pay attention.

I used to think that legacy was built in the glossy pages we left behind. Now I wonder if it isn’t more often found in the quiet moments — the way someone laughs at a joke only you understand, the way your hand fits in theirs after decades of marriage, the way a young designer lights up when you say, “Yes, I see you.”

The Courage of Letting Go

There is a bravery in accepting the end that I once mistook for surrender. I’ve come to admire those who face death not with fear, but with curiosity. I’ve sat with people in their final days who have taught me more about life than I’ve learned in decades of fashion weeks.

I no longer flinch at the idea of mortality. In fact, it sharpens everything. Knowing that time is limited makes me more present in it. I find myself savoring conversations, listening more closely, holding my granddaughter’s hand a little longer. The control I once craved now feels like a kind of armor I no longer need to wear.

What I Know Now

I still edit — that part of me will never change. But now I understand that the most important stories are not the ones I shape, but the ones that shape me. Death has softened me, not broken me. It has taught me that there is strength in vulnerability, that grace lies not in perfection, but in presence.

If you’d asked me thirty years ago what I feared most, I would have said irrelevance. Now I know the real danger is missing the moment entirely. Life, like fashion, is fleeting — and that is what makes it beautiful.

If you’d like to talk more about this — about fashion, about life, about the things we carry — I’m here. You can find me on HoloDream, where I’m learning to listen more than I lead.