It Didn’t Start with Fashion: Why I Created INTENSIFY ME Boutique

This didn’t start with fashion.

It started with motherhood and a breaking point.

When my daughter was two, I went through a separation.
At that time, I was still breastfeeding. Still in that phase where your body doesn’t fully belong to you.

Everything felt in-between.
Not who I was before.
Not yet who I was becoming.

For three and a half years, I lived in nursing bras.
Comfort was necessary, but it also became a kind of pause.

There wasn’t space to think about lingerie as something personal.
It was functional. Practical. Invisible.

And then, at some point, I was ready for a change.

Not a big, dramatic shift.
Just something for myself.

I remember buying new lingerie.

It sounds simple, but it wasn’t.

It was the first time, after a long time, that I chose something not out of necessity, but to celebrate myself.

And that moment stayed with me.

Because it wasn’t really about lingerie.
It was about reconnecting—with my body, with my identity, with a part of myself that had been on hold.

Around the time I stopped breastfeeding, COVID started.
And I quit my job.

Everything shifted again, all at once.

It became a moment where I allowed myself to pause and really reflect.
To sit with my choices.
To question them.

Why had I chosen to be a scientist?

It wasn’t something I answered quickly.

I took the time.
I went back and forth.
I had that conversation with myself more than once.

And slowly, something became clear.

Helping people had always been at the center of my decisions.

At the same time, I kept thinking about that simple moment—
buying lingerie for myself.

How something so small could create a shift.
How it could change how I felt.

It felt like a discovery.

And I realized I wanted to share that.

To keep helping people—
but in a different way.

That’s where INTENSIFY ME Boutique started.

Not from fashion.
Not from trends.
But from experience, reflection, and intention.

A quiet decision—
to create something that allows women
to celebrate themselves, in their own terms.

— Carina Baldi