The flowers were one of the most magical things at my wedding. Pink and white roses with splashes of green in short vases adorned the tables. My bouquet was short also. Nearly all white with a whiff of pink and some baby's breath. But the show-stealer was my bracelet. The tiniest rosebuds invisibly threaded together into a living wrist ornamental. Everyone commented on it and it was my last focal point just before I walked down the aisle.

The designer, as it turned out, was a dear family friend of my soon-to-be mother-in-law. Mel Furukawa began as an artist and illustrator before moving into floral design after studying the craft in Japan. It wasn't long before his impeccable eye made him the floral designer of choice for all the top restaurants in the New York area. Mel's designs were singular. It was 1995 when he gifted us the exquisite wedding flowers and my special bracelet.

The very next year in 1996 I moved my home studio into a commercial space in Tribeca.

We became a business. We had a name, and we had a business certificate.

We had policies and class cards and a schedule book. And we had an employee to boot.

But we didn't have a brand. Or the idea of a brand - we didn't have a logo or an image or a typeface.

And without those things I couldn't hang a shingle on the street and let our Tribeca neighborhood know that we had arrived.

Logos and original art were still something you had to source live in 1995 so when I realized I would need to hire an artist - I thought immediately of Mel.

It took a few weeks but in the end he created a simple swirl that embodied all I wanted to say about springs and centering and movement. The rougher edges symbolizing the harshness of the metal springs were balanced by the smoothness of the spiral alluding to the movement quality embodied in every Pilates session. The spiral, to my mind, was the inward focus of Pilates but also the trajectory of wellness that your Pilates practice would inspire. A journey that began internally but steadily expanded outwards.

I like to think that spiral pushed me upward and outward from our early first studio to our current international operation. Our first logo was proudly displayed at our first studio and became the official calling card of what would eventually become Real Pilates.

So much gratitude for our dear friend Mel Furukawa. The original logo is long gone but the deep teal color is still part of our identity all these years later.