BeginningWhy Alter Standard was born

I have said goodbye to several people I love.

And today, the people I hold dear have come through big moments in their lives and are living each day with everything they have.

Life can change without warning. That is why I began to think: I want to stand on my own two feet and walk my own path.

Around that time, I remembered something my partner's mother, Elissa, used to say to me. She was the person who stood by me, together with a lawyer, when I faced one of the biggest challenges of my life. She was a lifesaver in every sense.

“You deserve it!”
You deserve to receive it.— Elissa, my mother-in-law, who passed away eleven years ago

I embroidered those words onto a T-shirt, with one small change: You deserve everything! That shirt became the very first piece of Alter Standard.

Then one morning, from a rooftop, I saw the sun and the moon in the sky at the same time. I took a photo, and it became a T-shirt and a piece of wall art. After that, designs kept coming, one at a time, made with Canva from my everyday sense of what I love.

Not everything in my life has been sad, though. Some of it has been guided by strange and wonderful signs.

Orange Journal and Today's Sign

It began with a box from a friend in Tokyo. She had picked out clothes and magazines just for me, and when I called to thank her, she said something unexpected.

“In the horoscope page of a magazine, it says: carry a book with an orange cover, and go to a grocery store you've never been to.”

Half-believing, I went to Chapters and bought the bestseller of the moment. It was a little pricey for me, but I bought it because the cover was orange, and only that printing had an orange cover. Then I walked, book in hand, into a Japanese grocery store I had never visited.

Someone had followed me in. His name was Michael.

He told me later that at that exact moment, he heard a voice from heaven telling him: “Talk to her!”

Signs arrive disguised as small coincidences. Orange Journal and Today's Sign were born from noticing them, and from taking one step forward.

July 2026: Orange Toronto City
From our rooftop — Toronto

The day after our Orange Journal sample arrived, the entire city turned orange.

Wildfire smoke from Northwestern Ontario had settled over Toronto. The CN Tower, the sun, the whole skyline, everything glowed orange.

We took these photos from our rooftop. This is why we believe in Today's Sign.

The Ledger of Us

I see two families.

One is the family I was born into: my father, my mother, and three sisters. My father ran a barbershop, and my mother ran a hair salon, and together they raised us. This year, my niece had a baby boy, YAMATO, and my parents became great-grandparents.

The other is my partner's family.

When I began to know his family, I realized that mine had its own “codes” too, small mottos handed down through objects and people. I also felt how different our two families were: the way they thought, the way they used money, the way they held on to each other. I found myself asking, which one is happier?

I learned that money alone does not make a person happy. Being too careful with it can make us miss the happiness in front of us. Spending too freely can cost us our home.

My family home is warm, and people gather there. My parents built those relationships through the way they work and the way they use money. Their trust and their care come back to them, and that is why the house is full of people, and why there is a next generation to carry it on.

My partner's family has known great loss. Some of the people who could have filled that house are no longer here. His mother, Elissa, passed away eleven years ago.

Seeing both sides, I began to wonder what we keep, what we pass on, and what we leave behind.

That question became The Ledger of Us.

Muskoka Crew

In the Ledger of Us, I wanted to write down the things that matter most. Muskoka Crew was born from that wish.

When I was a child, my parents took us to villa towns in Japan, much like Canada's cottage country, every summer vacation. Those summers are some of my most treasured memories, and I am endlessly grateful to my parents for them.

Years later, before I met Michael, a friend invited me to her cottage in Muskoka. The quiet hours by the lake, surrounded by forest, brought those childhood summers back to me.

Later, when my sisters-in-law were looking for a place to move, Muskoka was on their list. In the end they chose Collingwood, but those conversations became part of my memories too. Then I watched the film My Old Ass (2024) and the series Sterling Point, and the lake came flooding back.

Muskoka is Canada's best-known cottage town, but this country is full of wonderful cottage towns, just as Japan has its own. Muskoka Crew is a series about the time we spend in places like these, and the special memories that grow there.

I imagined it in light blue, ivory, and white, the colors of soft lake air.