She Never Asked Permission

What my grandmother taught me about style, courage, and the art of becoming yourself

Today, my greatest influencer would have turned 100.

Her name was Mathilde Farre. She was São Paulo City's queen of 'be yourself' — before that phrase became a hashtag, before it became a brand strategy, before anyone thought to put it on a tote bag. She lived it the way people live things before they have a name for them: completely, quietly, without apology.

She never chased trends. She never asked for permission. She dressed boldly and entirely for the joy of it. If a garment didn't fit, she didn't return it — she tied a knot, cut a seam, stitched it into something that belonged to her. That was her artistry. And, I understand now, her philosophy.

She tied a knot, cut a seam, stitched it into something that belonged to her. That was her artistry — and her philosophy.

The World She Built

I grew up in her world. Purple velvet sofas. Dark wood furniture. Crystal chandeliers that caught the afternoon light and scattered it across the ceiling. Quirky dolls arranged on shelves like an audience. And endless wigs — rows and rows of them — from the beauty salon she ran as a single mother in the 1940s, when single mothers were not supposed to run anything at all.

She was kind to plants and animals in the particular way of people who pay attention to living things. She was generous with children — patient and present in a way that made you feel your ideas mattered. She was utterly unafraid to dance in public. Or alone. Preferably both.

She called me passarinho. Little bird. Because I was always moving, always curious, always singing and ready to fly before I had any idea where I was going.

I think she saw something in me that I was still becoming. The best people in your life tend to do that.

The Saturday Education

On Saturdays, she would take me to underground little thrift shops buried in the neighborhoods of São Paulo. These were not boutiques. They were not curated vintage experiences. They were rooms full of other people's lives — garments that had been worn and loved and set aside, waiting for someone who would recognize what they still had to offer.

We didn't shop. We discovered. We held things up to the light and asked: what is this? Where has it been? What could it become? We remade. We gave garments a second life, and in doing so, we gave ourselves a different relationship with what it means to own something.¹

That is where my compass was set. Fashion as self-discovery, not self-doubt. Creativity as problem-solving, not perfection. Style as a conversation you have with yourself — not a performance you put on for anyone else.

I didn't have words for any of this at the time. I was a child on a Saturday morning, following a woman I loved through rooms full of beautiful old things. But the lesson was going in. It has never left.

Fashion as self-discovery, not self-doubt. Creativity as problem-solving, not perfection.

The Bird Mascot

Fifteen years ago, I launched a sustainable fashion capsule collection. At its center was a bird mascot — roller-skating, wearing a fabulous scarf, entirely unbothered by gravity or convention.

It was a wink to my grandmother. To the passarinho she saw when she looked at me. To the years I spent roller-skating through the streets of São Paulo feeling that particular freedom that comes when your body is moving and your mind goes quiet and you are simply, completely present in the world.

I didn't name the connection consciously at the time. But it was there. It is always there. The work we do as adults is almost always a conversation with the people who shaped us before we knew we were being shaped.²

What She Would Have Made of All This

I think about her often when I watch students in our programs. The child who makes something from scraps and holds it up with the particular pride of someone who has discovered a capability they didn't know they had. The teenager who learns that the garment she wanted to buy for her birthday — the one pinned to a Pinterest board, beautiful and out of reach — is something she could make herself. The little one who asks, before she leaves camp, if she can take home a piece of fabric to remember the kind people she met.

My grandmother would have adored every single one of them. Their curiosity. Their agency. Their willingness to try something before they know how it ends.

She would have recognized in them what she saw in me on those Saturday mornings in São Paulo. A little bird, ready to fly.

What She Left Behind

Mathilde Farre did not leave behind a fashion empire. She did not write a book or give a TED talk or build a brand. She left behind something harder to measure and more durable than any of those things: a granddaughter who learned, before she was old enough to articulate it, that style is not about what you own — it is about who you are willing to become.

To every young person who walks into our studio: you are not here to copy anyone. You are here to become yourself. That is the only fashion advice worth giving, and my grandmother knew it before the industry invented a word for it.

Wear what you love. Make it yours. Make it matter.

Happy birthday, passarinho. You would have loved what we are building.

Style is not about what you own — it is about who you are willing to become.

References

1. On the circular fashion economy and the emotional value of secondhand clothing: Fletcher, K. (2014). Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com

2. On intergenerational influence and identity formation: Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. Norton. The role of early mentors in creative development is well documented in developmental psychology literature.

Priscila Teixeira is an award-winning community leader, passionate educator, fashion artist, and public speaker. She is the Founder & CEO of TalkingFashion Inc. and Columbus Fashion Academy, and Founder & Executive Director of The Fashion Community, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. With 40+ years in the fashion industry and a mission to transform waste into wonder, Priscila believes fashion is not a surface — it is a discipline that works from the inside out. She writes from Columbus, Ohio, where she has lived for over 25 years.