Why Maria Silvestre Is More Than Just An Afro-Latina Designer

Maria Silvestre is a confident walking canvas. Just as the interview was going to begin on a hot day at City College, a woman interrupted us to compliment Maria on her shoes. Did I mention Maria doesn’t even attend City College?

Recently, she graduated with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Fashion Design with a concentration in Accessory Design specializing in Footwear Design from Parsons School of Design. Although she has a love for the arts, she still had time to take psychology courses despite not declaring a minor in the field. Now, Maria is a freelance shoe designer and spends her time just enjoying the post-grad life.

What was the most challenging part of college?
Finding my voice in terms of who I am as a designer. So many people wanted to define me right away before you’re able to develop an artistic voice. I’m very into much of my culture and I’m very into exploring narratives that are more deeper than my other fellow designers.

A lot of people do things on a surface level. I want to do things more metaphorical, more psychological, make them think. But not everybody is going to get that and because not everybody gets that its just really hard. It’s just ‘Oh you was into some activism stuff, so you’re a social justice warrior, so you need to do xyz for your project,’ and I rather not. There’s so many things that you can do when you are conscious and aware. I don’t have to make a project out of it all the time.

A lot of professors felt that I should, and that it would be great, and it’s just like you can’t commodify the struggles. It’s one thing to bring awareness to it or use something, but when you commodify it for a special gain and the audience that you are presenting it to doesn’t understand it, it becomes hypercritical for me. It doesn’t work at all.

Do you think it’s important for a person of color to graduate from college? Why?
I don’t really think it’s important now a days. But it depends on what your major or what you’re interested in. Of course if you want to be a doctor, you need to go to school for it. But sometimes I wish I never went to school because I feel like you’re push into a box all of the time.

Art is very subjective and you’re in a room full of people who don’t like certain things or you do the opposite of what they like…You learn from a lot of people from around the world. You just see how things work on a systemic level.

When I talk to friends that haven’t gone to college, they’re doing really well for themselves. They just have a different perceptive than I do. I think more logical in terms of I need to do xyz. I have to plan it out, very collegiate type of thinking where theirs is more organic and that organic thinking they do things that I probably never thought of doing for the simple fact I’m like engrained to this system.

College is not for everybody but if you do have the opportunity to go, I guess you can try it out to see if it’s for you. But if it’s not, I don’t think I can push it as ‘you need to do this.’ It is what it is.

What do you love most about designing?
I love the concept development part of design. Just creating the inspiration then transforming and translating that inspiration into design. So it’s like say people do a jellyfish collection and if I have to do a jellyfish collection, I won’t just do it on the surface level of jellyfish, of translucence, different colors. I’ll think psychology and how they live and what their environment is like and why do they attack. From there I create a story. So I’m very narrative based. I like to tell stories. For the fact that I hate taking things literal. I like to be more imaginative in the things that I like to make. So concept is really the biggest part.

In school, you was taught multiple areas of design, what about shoes made you enjoy it the most?
I think you can be more creative in shoes. Shoes are very close to fine arts in a sense that it can be sculptural. You can go simple. You can create different textures and things like that and it won’t necessarily be distracting in a sense. Not everybody will wear something outlandish as clothing, but they will wear statement shoes. Also, just the making of it. I like to work with my hands. I feel like I work with my hands a lot better then computers. I’m very old school when it comes to that. So I just like making a shoe. So the whole taping and designing on it and creating construction patterns and things like that. It’s fascinating to me.

Who or what inspires you when you’re designing?
I think I have an alter ego. My alter ego is my inspiration because growing up I didn’t have the latest shoes. I remember when my mom use to tell stories that she couldn’t go to school because she didn’t have shoes and when she didn’t go to school, she would have her friend bring her books and things like that. My mom struggled with not having shoes and when she finally came here all she use to wear was high heels. She was my fashion icon in a way. So, her persona back in the 80's is my alter ego. So what if I took her from the 80's and put her now, what would she wear? So that’s like my biggest inspiration of what I like to design for. A bold, educated girl.

How would you describe your creative process?
My creative process is a hot mess. (Laughs) I think I go through long periods of time when I’m not inspired and then I get really depressed and I’m like ‘I need to get out of this funk,’ so I do crazy things in terms of I walk from my house in the Bronx, all the way to carajo land, to see if I see something. Or I’ll have like these really long conversations with my boyfriend or with my best friend to see if something pulls from somewhere.

But I guess I’m always in that search of motivation and inspiration. When I finally do find it, I don’t sleep and when I don’t sleep, I’m drawing or sketching. I’m printing things out, and I’m pasting them in my book, and I’m looking feveriously for things. I take magazines and my whole room explodes in this creative mess.

Finally, I end up creating a body of work and I usually end up throwing it away and then doing another layer over another round of creating to see what I’m happy with. I don’t think I’m ever really satisfied, but it’s what I can live with most of the time.

Was there ever a moment you had a difficult project and how did you overcome those obstacles?
My thesis was my difficult project because it’s just like here is a project that you need to commit to for a whole year and it is has to represent who you are. It was very hard figuring out who I was. In my senior year, people made assumptions about what I am and what I should be. So, I was finding not only myself and what I wanted to do, but also with my professors and how I wanted to be portrayed. So I guess that was the biggest struggle.

At one point it was getting really close to deadline and I was just like fuck it, I’m not going to listen to anybody at this point. I have to do what makes me happy. I stopped communicating with my professors and I stopped communicating with basically anyone that can help me because when I got feedback it wasn’t necessarily negative, but it was never really helpful. You usually go to your professors so they can help you in terms of construction or something technical, but when they don’t have anything to say about your work or it’s very ‘Yeah okay. Um, I guess?’ After that you’re just frustrated, so I was on that ‘fuck it.’ Sometimes you can’t listen anybody and go with your gut to see where you want to go because that’s the only way to find yourself.

What would you change about the industry?
The lack of diversity of course because you walk in a room and you’re one out of so many faces. It’s frustrating because it’s a sense of loneliness. When people are not use to seeing one thing and then you walk into a room, you feel the tension. They might not realize that they’re doing it, it’s a subconscious thing, but it’s like ‘Alright, everybody stayed quiet, I walked into a room, okay cool.’ Or it’s like you tried to be friendly and it’s like really closed off. Then later on, they’ll be like ‘I was so wrong about you’ or ‘I can’t believe I didn’t get to-‘ and it’s just like well if you were more open I feel like that would make everything better.

That shit hits you psychologically. When you’re the one out of everybody and you can’t feel like you can relate to someone. You feel like you can’t even go to certain people because of the dynamic of things. It’s just weird. It’s very frustrating for me in a way because you want to work in these dream companies and when you finally go there everything’s at a surface level and nothing’s really different. You’re more seen as a object rather as a person and it’s just hella frustrating.

I’ve been applying and looking because you don’t ever want to work for a company where you don’t feel comfortable. So you’re interviewing them as well as they are interviewing you. You just see and feel the uncomfortableness and I want to find a place that I can call home but realistically speaking that is not going to happen unless I create it myself. But I have to suck it up and learn first before I can just declare ‘Well I want to do this myself.’ I rather learn in these big corporate companies then venture on my own.

So if you identify as Afro-Latina, what does it mean to you in this day and age?
I feel like it’s normal. For the simple fact that it should be normal. It’s all I grew up around. My whole family is Afro-Latino. I have a few white passing family members but that’s about it.

In college you really know that you’re different. College is when you know that others don’t see you the way that you see yourself. I guess that’s when you have the most identity crisis. You have a big identity crisis when it comes to us because everyone is like what are you. ‘Your name is Maria, but where are you from,’ and all these micro aggressions and it’s just like ‘I am me, I’m from here and this is the normal thing where I’m from.’ They’re just like ‘Oh no it can’t be because you know I’ve been there one time for a vacation,’ and it’s just no.

So, its normal to me but to other people they say ‘Why do you identify as Afro-Latina?’ I have a few family members that’s like ‘Why you call yourself black? You’re not black,’ and it’s just like if you see my skin color, I’m hella black. (laughs) I don’t understand. So it’s normal. For other people I think it’s something revolutionary to consider yourself Afro-Latina.

I’m very happy with my Afro-Latina life. You get a taste of everything in the sense of I’m black, I have Spanish roots and I have indigenous roots. I feel like the best of all worlds, and a lot people may not see it that way, but I do.

So what’s next for you?
I guess putting more work out there. More art. I like to make stuff. So, I guess making more without having a deadline. That will be so great. I’m really glad school is over for the simple fact there’s so many deadlines and you feel rush in making it. Everything doesn’t come out the way you want it to because you have to meet deadlines and you have to meet the expectations of what other people would like. I just want to make something for me and my audience.