For Rita Farhi (’92), moving from Turkey to London at 16 years old was a startling change.

“I just didn’t think we would move,” Farhi said. “That was not something my father talked about all the time, so it was kind of like a last-minute thing. I was quite surprised and wasn’t ready.”

Joining ASL in 1990, Farhi said it was especially difficult to find her place in an unfamiliar environment.

“Once I came to London, the first six months, I didn’t speak to anyone at ASL,” Farhi said. “I was really, really shy. I used to sit on my own for lunch in the Commons. I didn’t know what to say to people, like, culturally.”

However, Farhi said the school ultimately broadened her perspective and helped her see possibilities beyond what was in Turkey.

“ASL opened my eyes, really, to the world and showed me that there’s a completely different world out there that I need to explore and be part of,” Farhi said.

Comparing her previous school in Turkey to ASL, Farhi said the transition felt surreal.

“I remember writing letters because that was the only way I could communicate with my friends in Turkey at the time, saying, ‘Guys, I am in an American sitcom movie,’” Farhi said. “‘I have a locker. I can wear jeans to school. I can leave the school when I want.’ It was just fascinating that I could do all of these things.”

Having grown up in a predominantly Turkish community, Farhi said she found ASL’s diverse student body intriguing.

“For the first time, I met people from Brazil, you know, Italy, Switzerland, Lebanon, I mean, all parts of the world that I have never met before,” Farhi said. “I was really, like, ready to embrace that.”

Moreover, Farhi said her improficiency in English often inhibited her academic performance, particularly in math, despite her passion for the subject.

“I was in the highest math class that ASL offered at the time,” Farhi said. “We were very few of us, but obviously I was not at the top of the class, and it had nothing to do with my math ability. It had to do with my English.”

Farhi said she credits her former Grade 11 math teacher, Paul Fecher, with boosting her confidence.

“He was the most inspiring man I have known in my life,” Farhi said. “He had a brilliant mind.”

After school, Farhi would meet with Fecher to overcome her language barrier in math. She said the sessions worked on comprehending word problems rather than solving them. In 2014, Farhi said she emailed Fletcher, thanking him for “giving the time” to guide her.

Farhi said it was teachers like Fletcher who contributed to the nurturing atmosphere at the school.

“They just get really good things out of you and kind of force you to do things,” Farhi said. “It was always encouraging. Like, it was never, ‘You cannot do anything.’ On the contrary, you can do anything.”

Farhi said this mindset encouraged her to found her luxury chocolate business, Rita Farhi, in 2004.

“ASL, if it gave me one thing, is self-confidence,” Farhi said. “That’s kind of what gave me the guts to do so many different things, including my chocolates.”

Founding Rita Farhi chocolates

Farhi said her family introduced her to the chocolate business in 2003.

“I kind of jumped into doing the chocolates,” Farhi said. “My brother and my father, they were like, ‘Oh, you know, we’re deciding to bring these pistachios coated with chocolate to London. Do you want to help us in the meantime, like, until you find a job?'” And I was like, ‘Okay, I don’t have anything else to do, so that will keep me busy.’”

After designing the brand’s logo and packaging, Farhi said she began pitching to buyers, with the hope of one day displaying her products in Harrods.

“When I created the brand, you know, my first goal was to get into Harrods,” Farhi said. “Everyone laughed at me at the time. I didn’t know anything about chocolates and Harrods, even today, like, is impossible to get into. I was like, ‘Well, that’s the goal, so let’s see if that happens.’”

After reaching out multiple times, Farhi said Harrods’ Head Confectionery Buyer, Rui De Sousa, responded, believing she was affiliated with former French designer Nicole Farhi.

“When he first called me, he thought I was related to Nicole Farhi,” Farhi said. “When he realized that I wasn’t, he was like, ‘Oh, sorry, I made a mistake,’ and I was like, ‘No, I’m sorry. Now you have called me, I’m not hanging up until you agree to have a meeting with me. I may not be Nicole Farhi, but I’m Rita Farhi, and I’m someone you want to meet.’”

Farhi said she met with Sousa multiple times before they finally decided to sell her chocolates.

When Harrods began to promote her chocolates, Farhi said other stores became interested in her products too.

“I had a whole stand in the chocolate room for my chocolates,” Farhi said. “I was in the magazine. I was in the windows. I was everywhere in Harrods that year, and then the phone calls started to come … the Conrad, you know, Peter Jones, like everyone saying, ‘We saw your products in Harrods.’ I was like, ‘Did you now? I’ve been sending you samples for a year.’”

Farhi said taking risks is what pushed her to collaborate with Harrods and achieve her goals.

“You kind of have to have the guts and just go for it,” Farhi said.

Experimenting with an online platform

Farhi said courage also led her to explore the online world after attending a meeting on social media usage at her daughters’ school in 2015.

“I opened an Instagram account on a whim and said, ‘I’m going to do everything my kids will not be allowed to do,’” Farhi said. “I left it public. I communicated with strangers. I tagged people. Like, I really wanted to understand how it worked before, you know, the kids got on it.”

While she initially did not use Instagram much, Farhi said she began incorporating her personal interests into more of her posts.

“I always liked photography in a way, so I was like, ‘Okay, like, London is a very pretty place, so I’ll just post random nice pictures of London and just see how this works,’’’ Farhi said. “That’s how I started.”

Farhi said media outlets and large social media accounts, including Time Out London and @prettycitylondon, started to take notice of her posts.

“Few big accounts started re-sharing my pictures at the time, and that kind of started to get me more following on its own,” Farhi said. “I was enjoying it as well, because instead of walking straight on Old Brampton Road, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to turn right and left and, like, you know, discover London in a way that I usually don’t do.’”

However, in October 2019, Farhi’s father had an accident, which caused her to step back from her Instagram account and her chocolate business.

To cope with the stress of her father’s condition, Farhi began taking long walks, using them as an outlet for her emotions. She said she would share the contents of her walks on her Instagram account.

View this post on Instagram

“I used to go on these really long walks to calm my mind because I was very upset with what was going on with my father,” Farhi said. “If I went out for a walk for two hours, I cried an hour and a half and the other half an hour, something would stop me on my tracks that made me smile. It could be a beautiful sunset. It could be a bird chirping. It could be Covent Garden with no one. And I started to share that in my stories.”

During these walks, Farhi said she also documented places in London that remained open during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There were a few places open where you could pick up a coffee,” Farhi said. “So I would say, ‘Oh, you know, I’m having a coffee from Claridge’s, a new coffee shop.’

As a result, Farhi said she received messages from struggling businesses hoping she could promote their products.

“The brands started to realize me all of a sudden,” Farhi said. “They started to reach out to say, ‘Oh, you’re in Central London. Thank you so much for stopping by and can we send you flowers? Can we send you this?’ All of a sudden, like, during COVID, I started to get all these packages.”

Farhi said “it was like a crazy time,” as she began receiving “so many presents from so many different businesses.”

Beyond packages, Farhi said the experience gave her a new sense of motivation.

“It just gave me a different purpose to keep me busy in a different way, because then I kind of have to come up with creative ideas to post those things,” Farhi said.

In 2021, Farhi lost her father while the country was also emerging from lockdown. In the midst of this transition, Farhi said she began to consider whether she could turn her platform into a business.

Since then, Farhi has grown her Instagram account, @ritafarhifinds, to over 178 thousand followers. Farhi said she enjoys content creation as “it’s fun and it’s challenging,” to constantly come up with new ideas to post about.

Although Farhi said her social media presence “was never meant to be where it is today,” she is embracing its growth and is curious to see where it takes her.

“I’m enjoying it as it is right now,” Farhi said. “The way I’ve been doing it lately has been very professional, like more intense. But, yeah, I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, where it will lead me.”

Ultimately, Farhi said her spontaneous successes — from launching a chocolate business to growing a thriving social media presence — trace back to the confidence she developed in high school.

“I would say, like, it all comes back to ASL, in a sense that, like, I was so shy and they really got me out of my shell,” Farhi said. “I’ll just go for things now … because if you don’t try, you’ll never get it, and, if you try, you never know what will happen.”

This story was originally published on The Standard on February 11, 2025.