The origin story
25 years.
One volcano.
One hour.
In eighth grade, the boys at school started making fun of my name. Svetlana. So they called me Svet shirt. Svet pants. Svet mobile. Everything with a Svet in front of it.
So I said: oh, you just wait.
I said I was going to open the Svet Shop. A play on sweatshop. I was going to make the most beautiful things, and with all the money I'd make, I'd get rid of sweatshirts everywhere.
I talked about it for years. I always sort of worked toward it. Then it never happened. I didn't know what it would sell. Different ideas. Different years.
Then one night, sitting on a volcano in San Marcos, Guatemala, a little elevated, a lot inspired, it became obvious: I already had the mantras. I already had the words. I'd been making them for years — in my art, in my work, in everything I do.
All I needed was a super soft cotton t-shirt and somewhere to put them.
It only took me 25 years to build this in an hour. Life is funny.
Svetlana Saitsky is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and artist. She collects mantras the way most people collect receipts: compulsively, everywhere, in the journal that is basically always on her. The idea for this shop arrived in 8th grade and got built almost three decades later in an hour on a volcano in Guatemala. But that's another story.
More about Svetlana →"oh, you just wait."