in conversation with Laura

I feel lucky to have been surrounded by strong women from an early age, who taught me the importance of grit, resilience, kindness, and lifting other women up.

I’m an identical twin and she is my rock, but I’ve also always struggled to find a balance between co-dependence and independence because we are so close.

Living on a different continent to her has forced me to grow into my own independent woman, and although it’s hard to be apart (especially in these times), it makes the moments where we are together feel particularly special.

Last March, I lost one of the strongest women in my life to cancer, and that rocked my foundations. Over a year on, there are days I still wake up in floods of tears when I remember that she’s gone. In the past, I’d have shut myself off to feeling anything at all, but I’m actively trying to embrace the memories of her — both happy and sad — and do things that would have made her proud of me (like this!).

Growing up, I played a lot of tennis, and always saw my body as purely functional — something to help me hit the ball harder or run faster.  Things changed when I moved to London for uni, and over the span of the next six years or so, I fell out of love with exercise and then back in love with it again, and swung from eating too much or partying too hard, to severely restricting what I’d eat or drink.  I’m in my late twenties now and I’ve decided that life’s too short to worry.  These days, I’m mainly appreciative of what my body can do, whether that’s climbing up a wall or slamming a forehand.  I’m just enjoying feeling strong and confident and to me, that’s more important than living up to a particular image of what my body “should” look like.

Laura wears the Rania set and the mint Vivi set by Underprotection and the Off White set by Baserange