A letter to the women who made me before I knew how to make myself
I was forced awake around 3am this morning and immediately started writing this next letter. Last night, my grandmother Lizzie B. came to me in a dream. She looked at me the way only ever could and asked me two questions, steady and unflinching. Who are you? What is your purpose? Without saying another word, she reminded me that the answer has always been mine alone.
I think part of how I've learned to answer such questions has been through building. Creating. Writing through the fog and uncertainty of life.
There’s also something I used to be a little scared, or even ashamed, to admit growing up. I’ve always been a quiet admirer of the way Black women and men, and Black American culture more broadly, have used style not as decoration, but as resistance. A language of self-possession in a world determined to deny us agency. Our shoulders squared in tailored seams. Our heads wrapped or crowned with intention, memory, and meaning. Our presence held steady in rooms where we were never meant to feel visible, let alone powerful. That lineage of elegant defiance shaped me long before I had words for it. And to be clear, this has never been about adopting the aesthetics of the colonizer. It has always been about taking control of space, narrative, labor, and legacy in a nation that has spent centuries deciding who gets to belong and who gets to be seen.
I love beautiful things. I always have. I love getting dressed and feeling like myself, like I don’t have to apologize for taking up space. I love a night at the opera with my partner, not because it’s fancy, but because it feels grounding. Like a small reminder that I belong in my life, in my body, in this world. I want women to feel that too. Not dressed up for anyone else. Just at home in themselves. For me, beauty has never been about chasing trends or proving worth. It’s about choosing care. About moving through the world with intention and respect, for ourselves and for each other.
And that’s really where Simply Edyn & Co. came from. I didn’t set out to build a brand. I wanted to build something that felt human in a world that so often doesn’t. Something slower. More thoughtful. Rooted in care and community, not extraction or endless growth for growth’s sake. I wanted an alternative to the massive corporations that profit off our labor, our attention, our exhaustion, and then call it innovation. I wanted to prove to myself that we could build something beautiful, ethical, and sustaining without losing our soul in the process. Something informed by Black women’s creativity, resilience, and vision. Something that doesn’t forget the people it’s meant to serve. Something we can be proud to stand behind, together.
That’s also where With Care. comes in. It isn’t a slogan or a vibe. It’s simply how I want to build. A reminder that care isn’t soft or sentimental, it’s practical. It shows up in how we treat people, how we source, how we price, how we grow. It’s choosing to be thoughtful even when it would be easier to cut corners. It’s believing that people matter more than profit, and that community isn’t something you extract from. It’s something you show up for. I don’t think care is a trend. I think it’s a way forward. One that asks us to slow down, pay attention, and choose each other a little more intentionally.
This isn’t really about shopping small or making the “right” choices all the time. It’s about noticing. About paying attention to where your energy goes, where your money goes, who it supports, and what it helps sustain. It’s about asking yourself what kind of world your everyday decisions are quietly helping to build. None of this is perfect or moral or all-or-nothing. It’s just an invitation to be a little more conscious, a little more curious, a little more willing to choose dignity and connection over convenience when you can.
I think often about my grandmother and all the women that came before her. Where she came from. East-Central Texas. Jim Crow as the law of the land. A world where Black folks were technically free but constantly managed, watched, and contained. She only made it to the second grade, not because she lacked intelligence, but because the system decided early what she was allowed to become. And still, she built a life. A warm one. A generous one. She refused to let the hardness forced onto her steal her humanity, her love for people, her belief in community, or her devotion to family.
So let’s just say it.
The level of imagination and bottomless determination it takes to survive centuries of enslavement, nearly a century of Jim Crow, and decades of curtailed civil liberties and still shape global culture is nothing short of extraordinary. I intend to keep showing up and building with intention, pride, and care, without forgetting who made it possible.
That is my purpose.
That is my answer.
With care.
Tasha Monroe
Founder, Simply Edyn & Co.