WHERE WE STARTED, WHERE WE ARE, WHERE WE ARE GOING. 

I started building Valeria Anastasia about 10 year ago, but I’ve been deconstructing it for a year or two now. I needed to shed a lot of it, strip it down. I needed to find the core of it. The core of my brand is not swimwear, ( when I started IG I was making swimsuits and that was the handle name available) the core of my brand are not prints ( I just disliked prints so much growing up that I decided to make my own). The core of Valeria Anastasia is freedom. Freedom to change, and to shamelessly please moods in transit and spontaneous ideas. The point of this brand is happiness, joy, pleasure, yours and mine. The fashion’s world rules and calendars, I’m afraid I’ve found out, do not apply or sustain this point. 

I’ve been struggling for years now trying to envision a direction for Valeria Anastasia and in the process I’ve listened to a lot of opinions that I value and respect highly,  however I just kept feeling more and more lost and feeling guilty about being feeling lost. But the old me loved getting lost. Being lost is a great place to be, so underrated. And I think I needed to get lost enough till I could hear my own thoughts again. I needed to remember the voice that guided me when it was just me, alone, sitting in my childhood bedroom starting  this project, thinking how I was going to turn that space into a real workroom. We still sew all hundreds, and thousands of clothes in my childhood bedroom, the energy in that room is so powerful to me, I’ve manifested truly everything I’ve ever wanted in there. If you love your childhood bedroom as much as I love mine you know what I’m talking about, it’s that purest form of girlhood, sisterhood, womanhood energy contained in those walls. Truly where the magic happens.

I spent a lot of 2023 trying to ¨define ¨ Valeria Anastasia. I thought, maybe if I defined it I could figure out in which direction to go with it. I was forgetting about my OG partners in crime, The Unknown, and his beautiful wife, Uncertainty. My curiosity for the unknown and my friendship with uncertainty have brought to me the best and most rewarding moments of my career. Embracing these two aspects of life are single handedly the only way to reach my mental peace. Nothing inspires me more than being aware I’m flooded in a sea of endless possibilities going in all directions. Defining myself or my brand does the exact opposite for me, I feel like a horse with sight blockers. As a kid I went to therapy to develop a better peripheral vision so the feeling of tunnel vision that descriptive words give me is truly unbearable, that’s the best way I can describe it. Having to define myself or my brand has always felt uneasy for me. In my personal life, I do not define my identity, sexuality or relationships, I simply am, whatever I am in the moment. For a long time it felt like I could just BE and flow within my brand, until for some reason, it occurred to me that maybe I should follow some rules, if not for myself, for others, to make their life easier. Take on some routines, if not for me, for others, a lot of people thrive on routine. Unfortunately, I don’t, and I had made a mistake. And I kept making that mistake repeatedly because I couldn’t understand why the path that seemed to be working for everyone else, was in fact killing me slowly. 

I feel lighter, I’ve been shedding a lot, and I plan to keep on shedding and deconstructing what no longer serves my path with Valeria Anastasia as I continue to play and have fun with this project. The more I let go off, the clearer I see and the better I hear the true calling.

It is true that I started this brand to please myself, and that is still very much my intention, but it is also true that from day one, my biggest inspiration has always been people. I can not please my creativity unless I’m soaking in the beauty of others and sharing it with them, creating together.

I am happy with all the changes that have occurred in the past couple of years, I am very happy about where we are right now. I can tell you with full confidence that I have not the slightest idea what will happen this year or the next, but whatever it is, what I do know, is that it will be full of muses, beauty and the simple pleasures of living. 

Many possibilities are already in motion and going blissfully in undetermined directions. 

Thank you for being source of inspiration for 10 years now, I'm excited to continue discovering this fashion journey with you. 

Besos 

-Valeria