By: Sofiia Shcherbakova, Founder, Sofi&Co Family
I have never wanted to create clothes for women who are meant to stand still.
When I started Sofi&Co Family in Bali, I wasn’t interested in building a brand around the idea that a woman has to choose between looking beautiful and actually living her life. I wanted to create clothing for women who move, women who travel, train, swim, dance, climb, build businesses, fall in love, take risks, change countries, change their minds, and sometimes completely reinvent themselves.
For me, comfort has never been the opposite of fashion. Comfort is confidence. It is the freedom to stop thinking about what you are wearing and start thinking about where you are going.
That philosophy has shaped Sofi&Co Family from the beginning, and on August 16, when “The Other Side of Fear” was presented during Los Angeles Swim Week in Bel Air, I hoped people would understand that they were not simply watching ten looks walk down a runway.
They were seeing ten different expressions of the same idea: you are allowed to become bigger than your fear.
Clothes for Women Who Actually Live
I love femininity. I love the body. I love pieces that make a woman feel sexy, powerful, and visible.
But I also believe that real women move.
That sounds incredibly simple, yet fashion sometimes seems to forget it.
A woman can look beautiful in a photograph, but what happens when she starts walking? Running? Dancing? Traveling? Sitting on an airplane for hours? Getting on a motorcycle? Going from the beach to lunch, from training to a meeting, from one country to another?
I want Sofi&Co Family to exist in those moments.
Our world combines activewear, swimwear, resortwear, and statement pieces because I don’t believe a modern woman’s life fits neatly into categories. Her wardrobe shouldn’t have to either.
The Sofi&Co Family woman is active, but “active” does not only mean athletic.
She is active in life.
She is curious. She says yes to experiences. She takes the difficult road sometimes. She is not waiting for somebody to give her permission to become interesting.
And yes, she wants to feel comfortable while doing it.
There is something incredibly powerful about putting on something that feels almost like a second skin and knowing you can go anywhere in it. You don’t adjust yourself for the clothing. The clothing moves with you.
That is the kind of luxury that interests me.
The Women Who Wear Sofi&Co Family
One of the most unforgettable examples of what this philosophy means happened thousands of miles away from Bali, at the Empire State Building in New York.
A couple shared an extraordinary moment high above Manhattan, where a proposal took place against one of the most recognizable skylines in the world, with our Proposal Catsuit featured in the moment.
When I think about that image, I don’t only think about the exposure for the brand.
I think: this is exactly the woman.
Not because every woman needs to climb a skyscraper. Of course not. But because there is something symbolic about a woman standing above one of the most intense cities in the world, completely alive in the moment, wearing something we created.
That image represents the spirit I have always wanted around Sofi&Co Family.
Our clothes are for women who climb their own Empire State Buildings.
Sometimes that means an actual physical adventure. Sometimes it means starting a company. Leaving something that no longer feels right. Moving across the world. Walking into a room where nobody knows your name. Falling in love again. Starting over at 25, 35, 45, or 65.
Courage looks different on everyone.
What interests me is seeing women discover what courage looks like on them.
Why We Chose “The Other Side of Fear”
Our Los Angeles presentation was called “The Other Side of Fear” because fear is something every person understands.
You can be successful and afraid. Beautiful and afraid. Strong and afraid. Experienced and afraid.
Being courageous does not mean fear disappears.
It means fear stops making your decisions.
That distinction became the emotional foundation of this collection.
During the show, masks became an important visual symbol. To me, masks represent all the identities we create because we think they will protect us.
The perfect woman. The successful woman. The desirable woman. The strong woman who never needs anybody. The woman who always knows what she is doing.
We learn these roles, and sometimes we become so good at performing them that we forget to ask who is underneath.
Fashion can become another mask. We can dress to hide, to impress, to belong, to prove something.
But I believe fashion can do the opposite too.
The right clothes can help you remove something.
They can make you stand differently. Move differently. Stop apologizing for your body. Stop shrinking yourself.
That is why the masks in our presentation matter so much to me. The story is not about pretending fear doesn’t exist. It is about reaching the moment when you no longer need fear to protect you.
What exists on the other side?
Freedom.
Bali Taught Me Freedom
Sofi&Co Family was born in Bali, and I don’t think that is an accidental part of our identity.
Bali changes your relationship with clothing because life there constantly moves between different worlds. Ocean, training, cafés, work, dinners, motorcycles, villas, travel, heat, nature.
There is sensuality, but there is also practicality.
There is beauty without the need for everything to feel formal.
That influenced me enormously.
I wanted to create pieces that could carry some of that freedom anywhere in the world.
Bali taught me that femininity does not have to mean restriction. You can be sensual and athletic. Soft and ambitious. Comfortable and unforgettable.
Women contain contradictions, and I think the most interesting fashion allows those contradictions to exist.
On August 16, that philosophy came to Los Angeles.
From Bali to New York to Bel Air
Los Angeles has a completely different energy from Bali.
It is cinematic. Ambitious. Visual. Fast. People come there to become something, create something, show something to the world.
That made Bel Air an exciting place to tell this particular story.
Our Los Angeles Swim Week presentation on August 16 featured ten looks bringing together swimwear, resortwear, and activewear through the Sofi&Co Family language: feminine silhouettes, body-conscious shapes, freedom of movement, and pieces designed to make the woman wearing them feel powerful rather than restricted.
But I don’t want the audience to remember only a swimsuit or a silhouette.
I want them to remember a feeling.
The journey itself feels symbolic to me.
We started in Bali.
Then one of our pieces appeared high above New York City in a moment nobody could have planned for us.
And then Bel Air became the next setting.
Three completely different places, connected by one idea: movement.
Physical movement. Geographic movement. Emotional movement.
Evolution.
People sometimes ask about the word “Family” in Sofi&Co Family.
For me, it is essential.
I never wanted to build something that felt like a distant fashion label speaking down to its customers. I want the brand to feel like a world people enter because they recognize themselves in its energy.
The family is not defined by age, nationality, body type, or profession.
It is defined by attitude.
It is women who want more from life. Women who are willing to be beginners again. Women who can laugh at themselves. Women who train their bodies and their minds. Women who can be glamorous tonight and completely wild tomorrow morning.
Women who understand that strength and femininity are not opposites.
And, most importantly, women who refuse to spend their lives watching other people live.
Fashion Should Give You Somewhere to Go
I think we sometimes talk about fashion as if the final destination is the photograph.
For me, the photograph is only the beginning.
I want to know what happened five minutes later.
Where did she go?
What did she do?
Did she jump into the ocean? Dance until sunrise? Board a plane? Meet someone who changed her life? Win something? Lose something? Take a risk she had been avoiding for years?
The best clothes become part of memories.
They are there when life happens.
That is what I want for Sofi&Co Family.
I want our pieces to be worn, moved in, traveled in, and lived in. I want them to appear in photographs not because somebody was carefully posing for a campaign, but because something unforgettable was actually happening.
The Empire State Building moment represented that beautifully.
Los Angeles allowed us to tell that philosophy deliberately.
See You on the Other Side
“The Other Side of Fear” is ultimately not about being fearless.
I don’t even know if I believe in fearlessness.
I believe in choosing movement despite fear.
Sometimes the distance between the person you are and the person you want to become is simply one decision you are scared to make.
Make it anyway.
Wear the swimsuit. Take the flight. Start training. Walk into the room. Launch the business. Leave the comfortable place. Say yes. Say no. Climb your mountain, whatever your mountain happens to be.
And wear something that lets you move.
Because Sofi&Co Family is not for women on the sidelines.
It is for women who are already on their way.
