ONE SMALL SEED MAGAZINE Issue #27 Digital 02 | Page 50

HOW DID YOU BECOME A DESIGNER? I’ve been drawing my whole life and at first I was interested in fashion design. Then I went to college and I saw the typical "fashion" people, and I hated them, so I decided to follow my passion of drawing and I studied illustration. I graduated in 2010, and since I have spent three amazing years in New York, there are a lot of great opportunities here. In the past three years I had the opportunity to work with a lot of great clients, but what started my professional career was all the internships I did when I was in college. So I was interning for Ryan McGinness, for Complex magazine and actually I had a part time job in PUMA retail while I was in college. Now, in 2013 I have my own collection with them. WHAT’S YOUR RELATION TO NEW YORK? I was born and raised in New York, Queens, and I’m still living here. My whole life. WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BROOKLYN, MANHATTAN AND OTHER BORROUGHS OF NY? Queens keeps it real (laugh). Because when you come into Queens everyone speaks a different language and comes from a different country. No one cares about where you are from, they’re just here to live in New York. You go to Brooklyn, parts of Manhattan, and most of these people are not from New York, they’re from Montana or Michigan or whatever, and they’re here to work. New York is a big melting pot but here in Queens, not a lot of people speak English. In my neighbourhood, we have a Tibetan community, Irish, South Korean, Thai, and a lot of Indians. You walk few blocks and it’s all Peruvians and Ecuadorians. You walk few more blocks you have only Chinese and Korean, no white people, it’s just a huge variety of different communities.