Lili's Farewell Letter 💖

Dear Nettle family & friends,

First of all, happy new year! I look forward to this new year with you and I hope it is filled with moments of pure joy. It is however, with a heavy heart that I pen this last love letter to you, with the sole purpose to communicate how I feel about you and to celebrate how much you’ve meant to me through the years. I have made the difficult decision to part ways with Nettle and to transition out of the business. Nettle will still continue onwards with Alex at the helm, and only growth is in the future for both of us. Although our paths are now diverging, it’s important to celebrate what brought us here in the first place, and to continue forward with what remains dear to us.

When we started Nettle almost a decade ago, we had one goal: to create beautiful, well designed pieces that transcended seasons for every body type. We wanted a sustainable, fun option for people just like us. In many ways, the creation of Nettle was a love letter to our city— we wanted to celebrate California and to make things where we lived & loved. Though I try, I don’t think I can ever properly explain how much it filled my heart to meet you, and to design clothes that were meant exactly for you. Every single show and every single email brought me points of connection from my designs in ways that I never ever thought possible. 

I still hold these values near and dear to my heart, and I will continue fighting for what feels right— I’m excited and emboldened for both Nettle’s future and my own. I truly believe that change brings growth— and growth really only brings deeper understanding of our own selves. I’ve especially loved that through the years, our sizing grew with us, a beautiful allegory for how our own bodies evolved to grow around us. 

Over the course of Nettle’s life span, we’ve made it through breakups, deaths, anniversaries, and a whole global pandemic, just to name a few things. We’ve lived full lives, and at times, empty ones. Design is a tough job, it asks questions that many people wouldn’t consider, like end use, texture, and visual feeling. It asks you to look outwards, to empathize, to understand, and to problem solve. At the end of the day, design and people who design only want to make their corner of the world a little greener, and a little better. Nowadays, I feel called by the concept of creative wellness, and it’s time for me to explore what that means for myself and my family. I will never stop designing or creating, it’s just now time for me to re-examine what design challenges excite me and to figure out exactly what problems I’m solving for. I feel called to connect to my history/culture and to gain a better understanding of my ties to a familial land that never belonged to me. And some journeys you just have to take alone. :)

Though we’ve come to the point in the road where we must part ways, the world is very big and very small at the same time, and I know that we will meet again. If you want to keep me company on my journey, give me a follow @thilathom on instagram. I can’t say I’m a prolific poster, but I would be grateful to have you nonetheless. I leave Nettle with gratitude and trust; I’m grateful for Alex and the amazing team (Kursten, Valicia, Natalie, Linnea, Kristen), and trust that they will continue the mission that Nettle stands for. <3

Take great care until we meet again—
Lili