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I was raised in Harlem. Discipline was not optional.
Spanish Harlem — Lehman Village — is where I learned structure, endurance, and standards. My parents worked without excuse. In a one-income household with five children, effort was expected. My mother ran our home with order. Every Saturday morning, before the sun felt welcome, we were awake — cleaning, music playing, the scent of polish and soap rising through the apartment.
There was no room for softness in that environment. There was only work. And presence.
I began working at thirteen. I carried that discipline into adulthood and into twenty-two years of service as a correctional officer — an environment that does not reward fear, hesitation, or insecurity. It requires composure. It requires authority without noise.
Harlem taught me fortitude.
Corrections taught me control.
But fragrance had always been present.
I remember watching women on the train — tailored suits, mink coats, deliberate movement. They did not speak loudly. They did not need to. Their presence arrived before they did. I remember working at Alexander’s as a young girl, surrounded by luxury counters and the quiet power of scent. I understood early that fragrance was not decoration. It was extension.
After retirement, I did not see an ending. I saw space.
One evening, preparing to go out, I applied my favorite fragrance and recognized something simple: I could compose my own. Not to chase a trend. Not to prove a point. But because I understood what presence should feel like.
LA POLIÈ was not created to ask for inclusion in luxury. It was created from the certainty that luxury belongs wherever discipline and vision exist.
I founded this house after fifty. Not as reinvention — as continuation.
Black women are often taught restraint. Taught to soften. Taught to move aside. I was raised differently. I was raised to stand firm, to work, to endure, and to let performance speak.
LA POLIÈ reflects that understanding.
It honors women who do not perform strength because they already possess it. Women who do not bark for recognition. Women whose presence settles a room without introduction.
This house was built from grit, memory, and sensory imprint — from Saturday mornings filled with music and the scent of cleanliness, from Harlem trains and polished floors, from correctional halls and quiet authority.
My name is Lisa Polite.
LA POLIÈ is not a dream realized.
It is a standard maintained.
It is the embodiment of self-trust.
It is resilience made tangible.
It is proof that presence does not expire.
And it requires no explanation.
