When the Los Angeles fires struck early last year, I had already been living in Encinitas for several years. But after more than fifteen years in Los Angeles—where SITA Couture continues to operate from downtown—the city will always remain part of my life. My closest friends are still there. My work still moves through it. My connection to it is permanent.
I was not in the path of the fires. I was not breathing the smoke or evacuating under threat. But distance does not soften impact when people you love are living through devastation. It still lands. It still reshapes you.
In moments like these, something unexpected often emerges: a deeper awareness of what matters. Loss, even from afar, has a way of clarifying purpose. It asks us to look more closely at resilience, at community, and at the things we choose to hold onto.
My dear friend Kim Marshall became a living example of this.
A longtime resident of the Palisades, Kim was forced to evacuate on foot with her two dogs during the January 7, 2025 fires. Though her home physically survived, it was rendered uninhabitable by toxic wildfire damage. Since that day, she and her family have moved through a period of instability and displacement, rebuilding piece by piece what life looks like after disaster.
And yet, in the midst of it all, she did something extraordinary.
She created.
Drawing on her background in wellness, media, and communications, Kim launched LA Rising just weeks after the fires. The platform became a space for stories of healing, survival, and collective strength—amplifying voices navigating loss and rebuilding from disaster across the world.
Watching her step into that purpose, there was no hesitation in calling it what it was: leadership. Not performative, not distant—but deeply human.
Her work is not simply about recovery. It is about transformation. Turning grief into dialogue. Turning disruption into connection. Turning lived experience into service.
And in doing so, she reflects something larger about how resilience is actually built: not in isolation, but in relationship.
When Kim invited me to join her on LA Rising to speak about sustainable fashion and the responsibility we have toward what we create and consume, I felt deeply honored.
During our conversation, she shared something that stayed with me. Among the few possessions she chose to recover and restore after the fire were her SITA Couture pieces.
In a moment when everything is reduced to essentials, what remains becomes significant. Clothing is no longer just clothing. It becomes memory. Comfort. Identity. A grounding force in uncertainty.
That realization sits at the heart of what we do at SITA Couture.
We design not just for appearance, but for presence—for the feeling of being supported, aligned, and connected to something intentional. Especially in moments when life feels anything but stable, what we wear becomes part of how we rebuild ourselves.
This conversation with Kim became something larger than fashion. It became a reflection on care—on what it means to create with awareness, to choose with intention, and to understand that clothing carries emotional weight far beyond its surface.
Being part of that dialogue was an honor.
And it is a reminder that in times of loss and rebuilding, we are always making quiet decisions about what we choose to keep.
And sometimes, those choices tell us exactly who we are becoming.
@KimMarshell
@larisingpodcast and
@swelltheagency
@sita_thompson
@sitacouture
