On June 9, I ended my last email by saying, “I’ve learned that some things are better spoken about once they are real. When the time is right, you’ll know, and I think you’ll understand why I felt compelled to write this email in the first place.”
What I was referring to, and resisting saying before it felt real, was that one week earlier I had signed a lease on Tone Deaf’s first flagship store, on Orchard Street in New York City. It is under construction and will open on September 12.
Yep, that’s what I was hiding.
I would usually resist an emotional trope here, but I can’t on this one. My mom and I left Pakistan for New York when I was 11. Fourteen years later, I will be selling my designs on Orchard Street. I don’t fully understand what it means yet. I only know that I am incredibly grateful, and that I get to say it because people like you continue to give the work a chance.
I meant to send this 13 days ago, on July 21, Tone Deaf’s official two year anniversary. It is now August 3. I apologize.
In the last month alone, I produced some of our most ambitious shoots and brought our largest collection through its final stages and into production, all while designing the store, managing contractors, firing contractors, arguing with architects and electricians, and receiving a fairly comprehensive education in the different ways people will try to scam you in New York City real estate.
Now that the heaviest of the heavy lifting is behind me, I can reflect on the last two years.
Two years in, I still doubt myself as much as I did when I started. The difference is that the doubt has less time to make decisions for me. Too many of the ideas I once carried around privately have become real for me to pretend that I know nothing.
I have also spent 10 of the last 24 months in Pakistan working alongside our artisans. One would hope that, after that much time with the best, I might have become a better designer.
I have not necessarily become a more patient person. I still delegate badly, and I continue to treat pain and sprinting as evidence that I am moving forward. I have not stopped long enough to test whether there is another way, so I continue, for reasons that remain questionable but hopefully worthwhile. Still, I know I cannot build the future I imagine if every month has to feel like July.
When I wrote to you in June, almost all of this was still ahead of me. The store was a signed lease and a set of plans. The collection was unfinished and the campaign existed mostly in my head. I was standing at the bottom of something I had already committed myself to climbing, questioning why I had chosen to climb it at all.
In that letter, I wrote that the world does not need more clothes, more brands, or more noise, and that my responsibility was to make things that feel specific, honest, and worth existing.
I thought about that while making the Fall ’26 collection. A lot.
Now that it is finished and the campaign has been shot, I no longer have to argue with myself about whether it is honest or specific. It is, and I am proud of it, which is not something I say easily. The world still does not need more clothes, but I believe this collection earned the space it will take up. That is the closest I have come to answering the questions I was asking, somewhat somberly, in June.
For now, take my word for it. Keep an eye on your inbox, or Instagram if that is more your thing, and hopefully I’ll see some of you, flowers in hand, on Orchard Street on September 12.
As always, if you have thoughts, feedback, notes, complaints, kind words, or just want to say hi, please reply. It is still really me reading it, and odds are, I'll answer.
The last time I wrote, I told you there was a lot more coming. I meant it.
With love,
Mustafa
Founder / Designer
TONE DEAF STUDIOS
