When I was in my 20’s living in New York City in the late 1990’s, one of my favorite things to do on the weekend was shopping with my girlfriends.  We would spend hours going into incredibly lavish stores uptown and downtown.  Some were entire buildings with multiple levels like Barney’s on Madison or Takashimaya on 5th, and some were tiny hole in the walls like Peter Hermann in Soho.  We’d pass through eclectic, quirky stores like Kirna Zabette and Kate’s Paperie.  And hit the super cool stores in Nolita like Zero by Maria Cornejo. We’d go across town to browse in artsy Commes des Garcon and wander into Jeffries and the Chelsea Market.  It was incredibly fun trying on all those extravagant clothes and shoes, then stopping to eat something decadent and delicious on the way. We did tons of walking, talking, laughing and actually very little buying at the end of the day (mainly because we couldn’t afford anything).

Over the years after I moved out of the city and parted ways with my girlfriends, I often thought of those carefree weekends and the feeling of happiness that I remembered.  I tried to replicate that same kind of emotion shopping in cities like Milan, Hong Kong, and London.  And even though I had a much bigger budget (I could finally purchase the things I was trying on!), and the stores were more luxurious than ever, I never got close to reliving the excitement and inspiration I felt in NYC.  In fact, I often left those stores disappointed, deflated and exhausted.

When you reach your 50s, you realize that being part of a community of women who can relate to you on different levels is a rare and beautiful thing. Feeling free and completely comfortable to be yourself with women who you never have to apologize to or compensate for being too strong, too career driven, too busy, or even too successful is actually pretty marvelous.   During these past years while building up the LŪRA community I’ve been delightfully surprised to feel true moments of joy, feeling that kinship, that closeness to women, some of whom I had just met. My hope is that here in the LŪRA community we can rediscover that feeling amongst ourselves and get back that joy and sense of liberty by being inspired and delighted by other women who understand us and accept us for who we really are.