T
hough her apparel bou-
tique, Rebellelion, was es-
tablished in 2015, Madelyn
Hadel has always been interest-
ed in fashion. As a girl, she often
drew and cut out clothes for her
paper dolls and used old fab-
ric scraps to make doll clothes. where she bleached the sleeves
and painted it with a graffiti pat-
tern and other embellishments.
It turned out so beautifully, she
sent it to a blogger and when
the blogger wore it, it was fea-
tured in Teen Vogue. Overnight,
she had 80 orders for the jacket.
As the name implies, Madelyn
wanted her clothing to be a rebel-
lion against current fashion mes-
sages and industry. Growing up, she
hated seeing the messages in the
media telling women how to dress
and how to look. Now, through
her pieces, she can help change
perceptions of what personal
style and self expression can be. “I woke up and I was like, ‘Oh my
god! 80 orders!’ But then, at the
same time, I got all my jean jack-
ets from thrift stores and made
by hand, so how was I supposed
to fill 80 orders at once? I think I
ended up making 12 jackets and
had to refund the rest. It turned
into this huge catastrophe where
I had to refund orders and peo-
ple were really upset. It was my
biggest success and my big-
gest failure at the same time.”
After she closed Paradox, she took
some time off to create a unique
and personal brand for hand-
made apparel. This new venture,
Rebellelion, is centered around
unique,
one-of-a-kind
piec-
es that tell their own story. She
Focused on eco-friendly and eth-
ical fashion, Madelyn sources
pieces second hand and upcycle
them, turning them into some-
thing better and with more style.
She also uses recycled fabric to
make handmade pieces. What-
ever she can find, she crafts it into
something unique to accentuate
each person’s individual style.
When she graduated from high
school, she thought it better to
learn something practical and
started courses for a degree in
graphic design, but it wasn’t her
passion. Making clothing was al-
ways something she wanted to
do. She felt if she didn’t at least
attempt pursuing it, she’d regret it,
so she wanted to give it a fair shot
before she gave up on her dream.
Madalyn’s retail store experience
got a rocky start. With her first
store, Paradox, she felt pressured
to compete with other major re-
tailers in making mass produced
pieces instead of focusing on the
unique individual pieces of Rebel-
lelion. One of the pieces she cre-
ated was a vintage denim jacket
Photo by Paulina Solski
34