Today is the last day of the year 2025.
It feels right to pause, not to celebrate loudly, but to take inventory.
This year, RTMD didn’t chase noise. It tested. It questioned. It learned. From sampling T-shirts and testing manufacturers, to refining what this brand actually stands for, the progress hasn’t been obvious to the outside world but it’s been fundamental.
I’ve learned that building a fashion brand isn’t about clothes first.
It’s about conviction.
Fabric, fit, and production matter but clarity matters more. Without it, every decision becomes reactive. With it, even slow progress compounds.
As I reflect, I’m also confronting harder questions.
While reading about Balmain, I can’t ignore the patterns that repeat at the highest levels of this industry. I find myself asking: Does reaching that level require being white? Or does being white simply remove certain frictions, allowing a different confidence, a different margin for error, a different starting point?
I don’t ask this from resentment. I ask it from observation.
There is a mindset that seems embedded in legacy fashion; a sense of entitlement to space, to risk, to visibility. Not arrogance, but certainty. The belief that one belongs in the room before being invited into it.
That certainty is powerful.
And perhaps that’s the real distinction, not skin colour alone, but the absence of internal limitation. The freedom to think in decades, not seasons. To assume access rather than seek permission.
This year taught me that if RTMD is to become what it’s capable of becoming, I cannot build it from a place of quiet negotiation. I have to build it from authorship.
Not asking:
“Will this be accepted?”
But deciding:
“This is the standard.”
Building a fashion company at scale demands more than creativity. It demands psychological stamina. The ability to sit with slow progress. To refine in silence. To believe deeply without constant external validation.
RTMD is still early. But it’s no longer undefined.
This year stripped away fantasy and replaced it with respect for process, for patience, for depth. I now understand that the brands that endure are not rushed into existence. They are composed.
As this year closes, I’m not measuring success by what launched but by what solidified.
The vision is clearer.
The intention is sharper.
The mindset is less apologetic.
The work ahead is substantial but so is the belief.
Next year is not about proving.
It’s about positioning.
— Founder