I grew up in Canute, Oklahoma. Population near five hundred. Wheat and cotton in every direction. Wind that never quite stopped.

Softness was not encouraged there. Not in boys. You learned early which parts of yourself to fold down and keep quiet.

Pansy was one of the words they used. A small word, meant to make tenderness sound like a flaw.

I kept the word. I made a fragrance and gave it that name.

The pansy is a cold-weather flower. It blooms when other things will not. It holds its color through frost. There is nothing fragile about surviving a winter in the open.

That felt true to me. To a lot of us.

Leland Francis was built by someone who understands softness from the inside. Memory. Longing. The pull between the masculine and the feminine. Beauty that does not ask permission.

This month is not a campaign to me. It is the truth of who made the brand, said out loud.

Pride, always.

Dillon