Fashion of the Future: Meet Designer Nathaly Delacruz

As creative people, we’re often told to “think outside of the box”. But somehow the more we work our way into our fields, the more we’re asked to put ourselves into a box. It’s subtle at first. Things like, “what’s your niche?”, “medium?”, “genre?”. And that’s fair… we’re all looking for easy ways to define and understand. But the truth is, that’s probably not where the creative mind thrives. Perhaps a better question than “what’s your niche” might be, “what’s your world like?”

That’s exactly what Nathaly Delacruz created with her interdisciplinary brand: a world. Or an ‘ecosystem’ as she called it, where each discipline is feeding another. It’s called Mabdez Media, and it’s a culmination of the creator’s experience and education across fine arts, performance, and design. It’s manifested as sculptural accessories like the Chair Bag, and wearable art like the Photography Vest. Not to mention the statement pieces like the Condom Tote Bag recently sported by Julia Fox.

I met Nat at Daughter cafe in Crown Heights where we talked about her journey with Mabdez, as well as her hopes, inspirations, and passion for creating beyond boxes. Here’s how it went:

How did you get into design?

Nat: I've always been in arts of some kind. I did fine arts in middle school and went to High School for Performing Arts. [I went to] Laguardia High School, I'm from the Bronx. And I wanted to get into fashion when I was like 11. So I decided I’d go to college for it and see where it takes me. The idea was to switch around between different areas of art. Spending some time acting and then sometimes doing fashion design. But now my goal is to kind of incorporate everything together. So that's the ‘media’ part of Mabdez Media.

How have you seen those different art forms play together? How do they build upon or inspire one another?

Nat: In acting school, I learned a little bit of filmmaking and production so now when I make something I'm often planning to have some sort of film around it. I've made a vest and a shirt and the idea was wearable photography using film pictures. That comes from the production background that I picked up in acting.

And then with my fine arts, some of my artw

orks find [their way] into what I make. My heart logo is just something that I drew, and that lives in my pieces. I also like to think about my pieces as sculptural works like fabric sculptures. So I'll make a bag and you can wear it as a bag, but you can also just have it as a sculpture. I used to do sculpture in eighth grade.

What a cross-disciplinary space. You mentioned the photography vest– how did you do that?

I’ll show you. [And for you, reader: take a look here] So you have the polaroid, and the pictures are interchangeable. So you can put them there to develop and swap them out to match your outfit.

When I was an actor, the ‘artists’ and the ‘art’ were not that separate. Because you are the art that you're performing. So I was looking at when I take pictures, how can I make it less separate? The artist is in the art.

Beautiful- fashion’s a great medium for that. Okay, so you went to Laguardia and then FIT. And then when did you create your brand in Mabdez?

After FIT I started working in the fashion industry. And somewhere along the line, I started creating at home– different ideas that didn't have a place, necessarily, in the industry. I had this idea of a MetroCard vest that stemmed from a project I did at FIT with found objects, one of which was a MetroCard. From there, I had more ideas that didn’t fit into the industry. So [they weren’t] something I wanted to take into work, but something I could create a separate space for. I think [it’s been] about two years now that I've been creating different things that [have become] “Mabdez Media”.

So you started creating first and it kind of–

Nat: –then I saw what was in front of me and I said, this is its own space.

How did you come up with a name?

Nat: It’s eponymous! It’s actually a combination of my names that I don't use. If people know me asNathaly Delacruz, but they don't know my other names, I felt like they should have a space in my artistic persona. So I created it into my business idea without it sounding like it's my exact identity.

Very cool. And if you just met somebody at a bar, and they were like, “What is Mabdez Media?” how would you describe it?

Nat: I would say it's clothes that you don't want to put in your closet. Or I would say avant-garde streetwear. Because it's not typical clothing that you see everyone else wearing. You definitely can wear it, but then you're dealing with ideas like a condom tote bag or a chair bag.

When you say ‘streetwear’, how would you define that? And how do you think your brand fits into or doesn't fit into that?

I think it's literally anything that can be seen in the people and the faces that make up the space that you're in. So I think this is streetwear. But I think anything can be made “streetwear” if it becomes adopted by the people in the street.

[Mabdez is] gonna have elements of hand cutting and hand sewing. So there's a craft and time-taking I have that a faster pace, larger manufacturing, streetwear process wouldn't necessarily make the time for.

How do you find being an independent designer in NYC specifically?

Nat: This is such a great place to be. I can't imagine being somewhere else at the time that I'm trying to get all of the groundwork built. This is all I know in terms of where I could even imagine this happening. I'm happy to be here. Love it here.

I’m curious about how designers in the city find spaces to sell or show their work. What's your experience with that?

Nat: I've done some pop-ups before. And I've even had some of my pieces in an exhibition. It was great. I [created my] chair bag. And there happened to be a wearable chair exhibition going on curated by Pink Essay.

I love to see my pieces in an art gallery environment or an exhibition because it really enunciates the fact that this is displayable art that you can also wear. At a store, it's more something that you can wear, but will people get that it’s displayable and also doubles up as an interior design or as its own piece? I want to belong somewhere in between or both at the same time.

I think there's more and more crossover in terms of how we interact with ‘art’ and ‘fashion’. We have this culture around art sometimes that's like: Don't touch it. And don't move it. It has to exist in these white walls. It feels a bit hierarchical in a way. As opposed to the idea of wearable art…

Nat: It almost makes it interactive art. Because you get to put it on and experience it.

And yet, having ‘wearable art’ also brings a preciousness to the garment.

Nat: Exactly. And I want people to want my pieces because they can see themselves appreciating them.

Where do you dream of this going?

Nat: Up– In a word.

I'm having so much fun just creating right now and being in the genesis of an artist without limits. And this is where the home is for that. The only way I can see myself going from here with Mabdez Media is up. Just creating more. I'm working on a mini collection and looking to present that later this year. I’m just growing my reach and audience.

And for that mini collection… what's your process? What's that like for you right now?

Nat: There's sketching involved. So I'll start sketching out the ideas that I have, but also right now, it's been a little textile based. So if I see material that I just absolutely love, and it's calling me I might not know what to do with it yet. But I'll build it into my sketches later. So I'm working around that. I'm interested in outerwear and pants. So right now I'm building on that and then making the whole collection from there.

When you say you're looking to present it, do you have an idea of what that might look like yet?

Nat: I don't, but there wi

ll probably be some sort of film aspect involved. But I'll see what the ideas are as they develop.

Where's your inspiration coming from right now?

Nat: I'm still looking for what I'm going to call this but it feels like a compilation of the different artistic disciplines. And the different ways to use textiles to create art and texture. So it's gonna feel like somewhat of a compilation. That's as much as it makes sense.

Are there any creatives specifically that you're inspired by right now?

Nat: It’s interesting. There are definitely specific disciplines that I'm inspired by currently. I look at them pretty broadly. I can say that currently, I've been looking at Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture and watching Satoshi Kon's films.

Such a sweet combination.

Nat: And when I go to and make clothes all night so that’s what’s in the back of my head.

Do you ever feel creatively blocked?

It does happen. But I'm not there right now. When it happens it's like, Oh my gosh, will I be blocked forever? But then I get to the space where there are actually too many things to create and so many ideas. So that's where I'm at right now.

I'm always curious how creative people kind of work through that because I sometimes feel like there's this “momentum”. When you do have an idea, it could spark so many others.

Nat: Yes. I'll be sewing something. And as I'm sewing something, and it doesn't look like the final garment yet, I'll suddenly have an idea of different garments based on what I'm looking at. So I'll start taking pictures of it immediately. Or sketching. Sometimes I just write on napkins. I don't even sketch sometimes I just write down an idea. And I have just a big notebook full of just these ideas. I mean, it's gonna take time to go through all of them.

But with something like the MetroCard Vest… It was two years in the making. The idea came one day and then it wasn't until two years later that I had accumulated all those Metro cards and actually sat down and made it.

So those were all just MetroCards that you’d collected?

Nat: I was collecting them, I had them, I had reached out to people. I was MetroCard Mami. People would give me their collection of MetroCards that they happen to have in the house too. So a lot of people's journeys are documented in that vest.

Actual, literal journeys! Why Metro cards?

Nat: It was part of a different garment I made at FIT once with different fabric manipulations. Something I had in my pocket was a MetroCard. So I threw it in there. And I used vinyl as a way to preserve the objects so that you can see them but it also becomes the garment.

The whole thing about using these objects is giving them a second life instead of discarding them or forgetting about them in a drawer. You can recycle them so that it lives on in this completely different way. And then from that idea, I made a Vogue Vest with magazine clippings.

So you've in terms of found objects, we have MetroCards and magazines, and I’m looking at your bag… [Nat was carrying the Condom Mini Tote Bag] …so good. Tell me the story with this one.

Nat: I was making a lot of bags. I saw a bag as a vehicle to tell stories with at that time. I'm using all sorts of things. So like anything that can pop into my head went through the transformation of becoming a bag in my mind in seconds. The condom was just like the natural culprit at some point. And then my roommate who's also a designer helped me flesh out the idea.

I saw that Julia Fox wore it! What was that like?!

Nat: Yes! It was amazing! I saw her, and I had it on me. I was like “Julia, would you wear this?” She was like, “absolutely.” And it happened very fast.

That's so brave. Was it scary?

Nat: No, it was so exciting! Like, Yes, finally. Let's keep the ball rolling. It's time for people to wear it.

I bet she was obsessed with it.

If you could talk to yourself when you were just starting at FIT if that Natalie was here, what would you say?

Nat: She is here! I think she is the same person, the only difference is I hadn't thought of Mabdez Media yet. But I was creating and I knew that one day if I kept creating… I actually don't think I had a strict rule of what the future as a designer was supposed to be. I'm not sure that I thought I was going to be an entrepreneur. So I don't really feel like I'm too different from her. She was just working rea

lly hard to be prepared for whatever this Natalie time is doing.

It's not like I've made it. So in a way, I feel like [her and I] are in the same place: working really hard to be prepared for the long road to come.

Is there anything else you’d like people to take away from your work?

Nat: One thing that I don't like is when people box you into only one specific type of art. Mabdez Media is also my way of exploring how I can be all of these different types of artists. And if there isn't a space that allows me to be all of those versions out there, then this is the space.

I feel like people who think being a ‘jack of all trades’ is inferior to a ‘master of one’ aren’t aware of the full quote. It’s: “The jack of all trades is a master of none but oftentimes better than a master of one”. I'm having so much fun being able to just dip and dabble into so many different things that I'm interested in.

Totally– Across creative industries, you have these people who probably didn't want to be in a box in the first place… Why are we cornering them? The more I meet people and talk to people, it's not necessarily that they have a ‘niche’ on paper, but a world that makes sense together.

Nat: Yes. Professionally I work in the menswear space, job-wise, but I've been on job interviews that wouldn't hire me as a woman's designer. Or it confuses them that I've done different things in my learning and working history. But here I am also making bags. I'm also making outerwear. I'm also working with denim. It's disappointing that people want to take you almost too seriously. To a fault where you can only be this one thing.

The truth is, I’d assume, you're better at each for having done all the others.

Nat: It's a no-brainer to me. Like one they each feed each other. It's an ecosystem.

I was taking pictures of chairs for the magic number of years (2). And I didn't know why. And then one day, I wanted to paint something so I painted my old chair drawings. And then when I stood up and looked at it, it was a bag in my mind. So I cut it out and used that as the pattern for the chair bag. So we just went from photography of chair design to a painting to a pattern for an accessories design. I got that into an exhibition and was so into that whole thing that I'm now making a real seat! And I started designing a side table. But the shape and pattern of the legs I worked out as a sculpture, and inevitably it’s gonna find its way into my garments!

So to me, it’s like… imagine telling me to not do that. I would have never created a lot of these things that are now my favorite pieces.

Photo Credits:

Juilia Fox: Rachpoot.com

All other photos: Xaviar Martinez (@unluckyspec)