As I sit down to reflect on 2025, I feel proud, tired, grateful, and quietly hopeful — all at once.

This year, we built a lot. We launched close to 400 styles across 10 categories, most of them entirely new to Wild & Pree. We started the year selling out our sweatshirts for the third time. Summer showed up in a big way — joyful collections, our strongest sales month ever, and constant reminders that this work resonates. Corduroy surprised us, and sold out faster than we imagined. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Wild & Pree shifted from being just me to becoming a very small, very real team.

But the growth came with weight.

The first half of the year was intense — deep in spring and summer development, hand-stamped fabrics arriving, fits being finalized, shoots planned and executed, launches stacked back-to-back. I was moving quickly, holding product, production, operations, and sales all at once. There were highs, but there was also a constant underlying exhaustion and overpowering overwhelm that I didn’t always have time to acknowledge.

Q1 took me back to India — long days designing and developing SS25, family meals squeezed in between work, and the emotional tug of trying to be present in both worlds. Summer brought momentum and validation — launches landing, customers showing up, and the feeling that maybe, just maybe, the risk was worth it.

Then tariffs hit.

We went from paying 0% to roughly 50–60% on imports, almost overnight. At first, I hoped it would be temporary. I absorbed as much cost as I could, adjusted margins, and kept going. But by fall, it became clear this was not a short-term problem. Operations had to be restructured. Pricing had to be revisited. Decisions had to be made that didn’t always feel good, but felt necessary.

Come September, winter silhouettes were being developed, corduroy was coming into focus; in Oct we shipped our first wholesale order, and November was full — full of work, full of logistics, full of mental load, and another India trip. There was very little space to slow down or to share the story as it was unfolding. Most days were about keeping things moving.

December finally gave me something different — a pause. Space to look back, to breathe, and to acknowledge how much this year asked of me, and how much we still managed to do.

As I look toward 2026, I know what needs to change.

I want growth that feels more sustainable — emotionally, creatively, and operationally. I want to rely more on my team, to step back from needing to hold everything myself, and to share more often — less polished, more present. We’ve already started moving in this direction through this newsletter, and I’m excited to keep building that rhythm.

On a personal level, I’m setting a small but meaningful intention: 20–30 minutes of art every day, especially watercolor. No pressure. Just practice, presence, and joy.

Thank you for being here — for supporting this work, for choosing thoughtfully made clothing, for sharing your love for the pieces on DMs, and for walking alongside us through a very real year.

Here’s to 2026 — steadier, softer, and full of possibility.
- With gratitude,
Pree :)

Wild & Pree is a slow fashion brand rooted in color, craft, and conscious production. Every piece is made using natural fibers, produced in small batches, on a made-on-demand basis to reduce waste, and designed to fit a wide range of bodies. We believe clothing can be expressive, joyful, and thoughtfully made — without urgency, excess, or compromise.

Thanks for being here, and for supporting work that’s built with care.