“Your line has no sex.” enthusiastically yelps Michael Yarde. As if it was a compliment. “It’s like the third sex, something between male and female but yet neither totally male nor female.” I felt insulted. Here’s a reporter who’s talking about my line as if he knew more about it than I. But I have no idea what he was talking about. Maybe he got drunk last night, as he was reading some philosophy books and mixed some concepts so it’s incomprehensible.

This was a day in the middle of July, it’s raining hard. I enjoy walking in the rain but not one of these type of days. It has been pouring hard all day, the heavy cold rain have bled through my tight thick raw jeans and absorbed into my skin and chilled my bones. He was carrying an umbrella but it could not cover both of us so I walked in the open rain, drenched. For a reporter he sure talks a lot especially about himself. And of course he continues “You can have this shirt that a guy and girl can wear it. Unlike other lines where it’s either female and male.” I was not in the mood to entertain random babbling about my creation from this eccentric personality as I begin to shiver. I hate the cold. Heat, I can take. But when it’s cold my mind stagnates and body stiffens. Everything closes, my spirit, my body, my tolerance for random babbling.

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But at this very moment four months later, 3am in the morning I realized he was right! The emotions attached to JUZD have always been universal. It’s very raw, organic, and aggressive, traits, normally associated with male but also in the female. These universal traits are in animals and even in plants. Yes plants. Plants are as aggressive and violent as any vicious lion, tiger, or shark on the Discovery channel. You can see this as plants battle to block the sunlight from each other killing the shorter ones sunset by sunset; vines of plants squeeze the life out of neighbouring plants; and weeds battle for territory killing off beautiful flowers.

Leonardo Da Vinci once said he’s not the one that created the magnificent statues, it has always been there, he just chipped away the pebbles that was hiding it. In the same light, I did not or should I say, I am not creating JUZD, it is always been there, I just discover it. It’s universal and it belongs to all of us.

Ever since the beginning of JUZD, it has constantly change. It’s an organic plant. At each stage it has matured and deepen, the vision, the designs, the concept. Everything! That’s what makes this brand deep, not contrived, all the elements intervene seamlessly, like nature itself. I have to confess that all the elements and concepts of the line are not from me, they are contributions from the thousands of people I interacted with. And the millions of people that have unwittingly contributed to it, from the artist showcasing in the shabby art gallery I visited on South Beach Miami that was across from my hotel to the designer of the in flight magazine on Air Korean as I was flying back to Toronto from China. The realization of JUZD was also contributed by my stylists and photographers who showed me their interpretation of JUZD. These are just a small amount of people that inspired and help enlightened me on the true essence of JUZD.

So Michael was right. It took me over four months to realize that. And I can’t believe I remember that moment as I never thought of that incident for a second since it happened. JUZD is not my creation, it’s just my discovery, my interpretation of what is already there or what is being organically created right now. It belongs to all of us, even you as you read this.