Hispanic Heritage and Design: Fashion to Storytelling – Part 2
Going down the rabbit hole of writing and capturing my parents’ stories truly opened my eyes.
Editor’s note: This is part two of a three part series. Read part one here: My Creative Blend of Hispanic Heritage and Design- part 1
The strategic skills that launched my author career were an evolution of the thirty years I’ve been in the fashion business, but I didn’t know it at the time. I thought these two roles were worlds apart, but I eventually came to realize that this pivot was applying a lifetime of design expertise in building brands to the brand I honestly knew best – my heritage.
Entrepreneurial Roots: The First Design Studio
My parents have always been incredibly self-determined. They not only transitioned from migrant labor to my dad’s stable factory work, but they became landlords and successful entrepreneurs. They didn’t have any guidance for business start-ups. They learned things on their own and persevered no matter what.
They also always supported my passion for the arts, viewing my creative pursuits as valuable career paths.
This began with my mother’s vision. She decided to open the first bridal business in Defiance, recognizing that brides had to travel long distances for gowns. She proposed housing the business in the basement of our home, which had its own separate entrance for clients.
However, the path to approval was immediately met with resistance and clear discrimination. Their first lawyer failed, and the town initially rejected their offer. When a McDonald’s (yes THE McDonald’s with the golden arches) was immediately approved to open for business just five houses down the street, my mother, being the hard-headed, stubborn Latina that she is, refused to back down. She went right back to the city to argue her case, highlighting the double standard. They still gave her a hard time, but her persistence prevailed. She finally got it approved and opened a very successful business.
This became my first design studio. I was hooked from the age of four, mesmerized watching brides transform. I hoarded fabric scraps, learning to sew. The business of design—creation, transformation, and self-expression—was established watching the magic in that basement.
I made dresses for all my dolls out of those beautiful scraps of fabric. She taught me to sew, first with just a needle and thread, eventually on the sewing machine, without electricity and manually rotating the hand wheel to learn the basics of stitching without fear of getting my fingers pierced by the needle, and eventually sewing on my own and making my own designs and patterns.
The Strategist and the Storyteller
I eventually majored in Fashion Design at Bowling Green State University in Ohio knowing that they had a Visiting Transfer Student program at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City for the final year of coursework. That had always been my goal – to attend FIT!! Once I graduated from FIT, I never looked back. My career path kept me in the city working for various companies. I spent three decades climbing the ranks, building brands, and becoming skilled in building relationships with talent, suppliers and factories as well as cost engineered design. I launched major celebrity collaborations with Brooke Shields, Wendy Williams, Adam Levine and Nicki Minaj. My professional success was built on recognizing a core connection:
In both fashion and writing, you must create something from a concept, craft a brand identity, and leave a lasting impression. You delight the customer with authenticity and a story. You stay true.
Building the Brooke Shields Timeless brand in the NYC showroom of my old company KBL Group Intl.
The Ultimate Narrative: Heritage as a Brand
As the nature of fashion business started to shift in the 2000’s, I felt like I could use my skills to start my own company, so driven by my parents’ spirit, I launched Tocaya Design LLC, in 2018. The name Tocaya is deeply personal and is central to the brand’s message. In Spanish, “Tocaya” means namesake or someone who shares your name. I chose it because I wanted the brand to feel like a trusted confidant and friend, someone who was akin to you—your Tocaya.
The brand was successful and growing until the global pandemic hit. The logistics and supply chain challenges made production in the United States unviable to continue. I continued to operate in the fashion business by transitioning into a consultant role, supporting other mid-level and small fashion businesses by leveraging the years of design and brand-building experience I had cultivated. During this period, I honed my business set of skills more than I thought imaginable. I had always considered myself more of a creative, but when you are running your own business, you must learn every aspect.
Throughout this whole time, I had also been a part of Latin Business Today, where interviewing Latino entrepreneurs and giving them, a spotlight gave ME an epiphany: my family’s own history was more important than any brand strategy I had ever launched.
Going down the rabbit hole of writing and capturing my parents’ stories truly opened my eyes. It was incredibly cathartic, providing a lens that allowed me to see clearly how their experiences directly shaped me and led to a deeper and more compassionate understanding of my own identity. I decided to resolve my lifetime feeling of displacement—that sense of being “not enough Latino” in some cases, and in other scenarios, feeling distinctly like “a minority.” Authorship is the space where I can fully embrace my culture and honor my family’s roots and legacy.
My debut trio of books—including the legend of El Rancho Chocolaté , the historical El Camino del Destino, and the cautionary tale of Where El Cucuy Lurks—are the direct result of applying my brand-building skills to my personal heritage.
A New Brand is Born
My three-decade career in the New York fashion business was all preparation for this moment. I redirected that specific expertise in brand building and creative execution to my own Mexican American culture, proving that the skills used to create multi-million dollar apparel lines can be just as effective in preserving a legacy. This brand of cultural storytelling has been many things – eye opening and transformative for me, a gift that I want to share with young Latino readers who don’t see themselves or their cultures represented in books, and the next step of my entrepreneurial journey.
Join me next time in Part 3: The Power of the Mirror and Building a Legacy
For more information about my books and additional resources, you can visit my website.
Related content:
Part 1: My Creative Blend of Hispanic Heritage and Design- part 1
A Latina Entrepreneur’s Journey Building Her Business [Video]
