I’ve spent most of my life reading the world in a way that didn’t match what teachers or textbooks expected. While others moved through lines of text as if they were following a straight road, I found myself navigating something far more visual, instinctive, and multidimensional. I read through numbers, imagery, shapes, patterns, and the rhythm of a page. For years, I thought this meant I was doing it wrong. Now I understand it simply means I am dyslexic, and my brain reads in its own extraordinary way.

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When I look at a word, I don’t see a tidy row of letters waiting to be sounded out. I see the length of the word, the rise and fall of its shape, the tall letters standing like pillars, the dips and curves that create its silhouette. Sometimes the whole word becomes a picture in my mind. Sometimes it becomes a kind of number — a unit of shape and structure rather than a sequence of symbols. This is how I read, and it works for me. It’s how many dyslexic people read, even if they’ve never had the words to explain it.

Dyslexia affects millions of people, and so many of us rely on visual memory, spatial reasoning, and intuitive pattern recognition to make sense of language. We don’t follow the traditional path of decoding letter by letter. We build meaning through shape, rhythm, and imagery. And once we stop feeling ashamed of that difference, we start to see the strength in it. Some of the world’s most influential thinkers and creators have shared this same way of processing language. Muhammad Ali, Agatha Christie, Leonardo da Vinci, Whoopi Goldberg, Cher, Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Keira Knightley, Richard Branson, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein — all of them navigated reading and writing differently. They didn’t succeed after “fixing” their dyslexia. They succeeded because their minds worked in ways that allowed them to see possibilities others missed.

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And this is where my love of fashion comes in, because fashion has always made sense to me in a way that text sometimes didn’t. While reading a page could feel tangled or overwhelming, reading fabric, shape, colour, and movement felt natural. I could understand a garment instantly, not through words but through form. I could see the structure before it existed, feel the silhouette before it was sewn, imagine the final piece long before the first cut. The same visual and spatial instincts that help me read through numbers and imagery are the instincts that guide me in design.

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Dyslexia teaches you to see patterns where others see confusion, to notice details others overlook, to imagine possibilities others can’t yet picture. In fashion, that way of thinking isn’t just helpful — it’s powerful. Every designer who has ever changed the industry did so by seeing differently, thinking differently, and refusing to follow the expected path. Dyslexic minds are built for that kind of creativity. When I work with fabric, I don’t think in sentences. I think in shapes, textures, proportions, and rhythms. I think in the language of drape and structure. I think in the rise and fall of a hem, the curve of a seam, the balance of a silhouette. This is the same language my brain uses when I read. It is visual. It is intuitive. It is emotional. It is alive.

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If you love fashion and you are dyslexic, I want you to hear this from someone who understands it deeply: do not give up. Do not let anyone convince you that your way of thinking is a disadvantage. The fashion world has always been shaped by people who see the world differently. People who think in images. People who feel ideas before they can explain them. People who understand beauty through instinct rather than instruction. People like you.

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Dyslexia gives you a way of seeing that cannot be taught. It gives you the ability to visualise ideas in three dimensions, to sense proportion without measuring, to understand colour and texture in a way that feels almost physical. It gives you the courage to experiment, to break rules, to create something that has never existed before. Fashion needs minds like ours — minds that refuse to be ordinary.

So if reading feels hard but designing feels natural, trust that. If words blur but ideas come alive in your hands, trust that. If the world tells you to fit into a system that was never built for you, trust yourself instead. Your creativity is not a backup plan. It is your strength. It is your voice. It is the way you communicate with the world when text tries to silence you.

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Fashion is a place where difference becomes beauty, where imagination becomes reality, where the things that once made you feel out of place become the very things that set you apart. Your dyslexia is not something to hide. It is something to use. It is something to express. It is something to celebrate. And if you ever doubt yourself, remember this: the world’s greatest designers, artists, and innovators were rarely the ones who followed the rules. They were the ones who saw the world through a different lens — just like you do every single day.