At the risk of overgeneralization, the West tends to dress for belonging, while the East dresses for class. When I was fresh off the plane, I didn’t understand why Americans would wear stuff like a college sports league from 10 years ago or an overpriced T-shirt from a marathon. Fewer seemed to care about the latest luxury drop or owning the same outfit a celebrity wore. Then I realized: East and West dress for different reasons. In the West, clothing is collective memory. It's tribal pride. Jewelry is often personal memory, what shapes the identity. But that threadbare shirt? It’s a slice of youth, a cultural item. In the East (stereotyping a bit), fashion is status. Hermes and Dior are household names. As a teenager I became hypersensitive to brands, conditioned by the way people would eye you down. It's a "skill" I would rather not have, because perpetrates hierarchy. I used to dream of building a cultural fashion house — where every piece tells a story. Defiant, diasporic, always emotional. I hope to bring a version of that to life with Perena Studio, shaping the culture of stablecoins, finance, and Solana. Our next drop will be in Tokyo.

P.S. life is too short to be wearing ugly clothes.