A world of her own : Lisa Ray

What does individuality mean to you, and how do you express it? 
Individuality, to me, is the freedom to stop explaining yourself. I’ve spent much of my life taking the road less travelled—sometimes deliberately, sometimes because life pushed me there. Today I express individuality by trusting my instincts: in what I wear, where I live, what I create, and what I say no to. I’m less interested in fitting in, and much more interested in feeling fully myself.

How has your relationship with style evolved as you’ve evolved as a woman?
When I was younger, style was more performative. I worked in fashion and film, so clothes were often about becoming someone or creating an image. Today style is much more intimate. It’s about mood, comfort, sensuality, play—and occasionally contradiction. I can be minimalist one day and gloriously excessive the next. I don’t believe in “dressing your age.” If anything, age has given me permission to dress more like myself.

What is one quality you value more in yourself today than you did ten years ago? 
Discernment. Knowing what deserves my energy—and what doesn’t. When you’re younger, you can spend a lot of time trying to be understood, approved of, or chosen. These days, I value the ability to choose for myself. There is enormous freedom in that.

What does it mean to evolve while staying true to what makes you, you?
I don’t think staying true to yourself means staying the same. Quite the opposite. We’re meant to shed identities, change our minds, contradict earlier versions of ourselves. The thread that remains is something deeper—your values, your curiosity, your inner compass. Evolution, for me, is not becoming someone else. It’s becoming more completely who you were underneath all the conditioning.

What about Āroka’s approach to design and its evolving identity resonates with you?
I’m drawn to design that carries a point of view without shouting for attention. What resonates with me about Āroka is this sense of evolution—the idea that femininity and identity don’t have to be fixed or neatly defined. There’s room for softness and strength, restraint and expression. That feels very much like the woman I am today: still becoming, still curious, and increasingly uninterested in being only one thing.