Abraham Alexander was wearing Jane before we ever asked him to be part of Sincerely, Jane. There was no introduction to make between the two. Jane had already found its way into his wardrobe and become something he reached for on his own. When asked what first drew him to the timepiece, Alexander put it simply: “It didn’t ask me to be louder. Some things you choose, and some things quietly choose you.”

Personal style, at its best, shouldn’t feel like following instructions because it comes from recognizing yourself in something, and then finding your own way to wear it. It is a lesson Alexander learned early. As a younger sibling, he received hand-me-downs from his brother, but he found ways to make them his own. This is the mark of personal style. “I understood, long before I had the words for it,” he says, “that style isn't about what you're given but about what you do with it. My brother's clothes came to me already lived in, already carrying someone else's shape, and the work was to make them answer to me. That was my first lesson in becoming myself. You take what the world hands you and refuse to wear it the way the world intended.”

That instinct is still recognizable in the way Alexander dresses today. He points to his jewelry as something a younger version of himself would immediately understand. The pieces may have changed, but the impulse behind choosing them has not. It also points to why a smaller timepiece like Jane feels so natural on his wrist. People have historically labeled proportions like Jane's feminine, a distinction that holds little weight for Alexander or BREDA.

Abraham wears Jane (Leather) in Gold/Champagne/Brown

“Someone, somewhere, decided what a small watch should mean and who should wear it, but that was their fear speaking, not my wrist,” he says. “I have never found it necessary to obey a rule I had no part in making.”

For Alexander, finding your style seems to be more about removing rules than following them. “Freedom begins on the day you realize the rules were invented by people no wiser than you,” he says. From there, getting dressed becomes less of “a negotiation with the world” and more of an honest reflection of who you are. That’s why people find so much more in themselves when they free themselves from the constraints of their upbringing or environment, but when they find ways to honor where they came from, fashion becomes personal style.

But the things Alexander wears and keeps are not important to him simply because they express something. Often, their meaning comes from what they remember.

“The story, always,” he says when asked what makes him hang on to something. “A thing that holds a person or a moment is no longer just a thing.”

One of those objects is his mother’s Bible. Her words and dates remain written inside it. The book itself stays much as it was, while Alexander continues to change around it. Over time, that difference has become part of its meaning.

“The years pour into it, and what was once simply something owned becomes a witness to who I was when I got it and who I’ve become since.”

That is the power of objects, of knick-knacks, and trinkets. They stay still long enough for us to notice how far we have moved. Much like a photograph, they have a way of placing us in a certain time and place. However, rather than freezing a moment, they can gather memories along the way. For someone whose life has contained distinct chapters, Alexander sees value in having tangible bridges between them. Certain things remind him that earlier versions of himself have not disappeared completely. They remain part of who he is now. Still, keeping everything is neither possible nor desirable. “You can’t carry every chapter on your back,” he says. “There’s a mercy in knowing what to leave behind so you can keep walking.”

The same tension appears in his music. Asked about a song that has outlived the circumstances in which it was written, Alexander points to “Bella Dawn,” from his first album. It came from a particular version of himself and a particular desire, but the song remains after the circumstances have changed.

Perhaps that is what songs and objects have in common. They begin with one meaning and gather others as we continue living with them. Alexander experiences time in much the same way. Not mainly through years, dates, or the traditional markers we use to measure a life, but through the people within it.

“People, always people,” he says. “My life has never really been measured in years, only in who was standing beside me when the years were passing.”

For most of us, some places hold time. Our childhood home or first apartment. For Alexander, one is Greece. Returning there with his family became something larger than revisiting a location from his past. It offered a different kind of recognition.

“I went thinking I was visiting a place, and I came away understanding that I had been visiting myself,” he says. “Something in me had always been waiting there.”

He intends to carry that feeling for the rest of his life. We hope Jane is right there along with him.