Julia Franchi Scarselli announced her return home from high school one day calling out to her mom, or mamma, in a thick Italian accent. She had just transferred from a class of 50 kids in a small British private school in Milan to the much larger Washington-Lee High School, now Washington-Liberty.

“I remember driving up to the school thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is an airport? Like, where did I land? I don’t know anybody,” Scarselli tells ARLnow. Scarselli grew up in Milan with her father and Sara Gay Forden, who had spent two decades covering the fashion industry and luxury goods.