My parents are Colombian, and they emigrated to the UK. So I was actually born in London, but Spanish was my first language. My familia is very Colombiana.

I forgot. Now it is more Spanglish, so sadly, it was my first language, but it‘s funny because I certainly lost a bit of it once I started in school and then when I went to university. But whereas my sister, she is completely fluent. I’m the only one in my family that has this sort of Spanglish thing.

Well, it’s been a long journey, so it’s basically like most people, it’s through starting right at the bottom, and then working your way up, and just, luchando as we say. It certainly wasn’t something that came about overnight. You know I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years now, so, for the first... maybe seven years, I wasn’t at a point where I was successful. I was just still grafting and still sort of hustling away. So, I’m just like most things; it just takes a lot of hard work.

I feel like they probably didn’t really know what that was, and I don’t think that I even at that point knew what it was. It was a time before social media, and now I feel like our jobs are so sort of exposed. Back in the day, we had sort of the Rachel Zoe’s show, and that was something that really brought into the limelight what our jobs actually were are, but at that time when I was first starting out, it wasn’t really a job that was publicly known. I knew that I wanted to work on magazines, and that’s where I started. So I could say to my mamá y papá that I wanted to work en las revistas and in the moda and that kind of thing. But really the profession of being a stylist. I feel like neither they nor I really understood what that was at that time.

I do. I like to have an eclectic mix of clothes. But obviously, there are some incredible Latin American designers out there, some really great ones. We try to support in any way we can. This year we did Latin Grammys, and we did all Latin American designers with Yalitza Aparicio — who is one of my clients. And that was a fun way of showcasing designers from all over Latin America, from Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. When you’re Latin American, I feel like it kind of comes subconsciously. You sort of do these things, and I have a few Latina clients, and it just happens organically. I also work with She Se Puede, which is a fun organization started by Latinas in Hollywood.

Big award shows preparation generally starts as soon as your nominations are out. So once I know that my clients have been nominated or that will present [an award], or they are going to attend, I would start reaching out or getting in touch with people and designers almost immediately, to be honest. Especially if you are working on custom gowns, which often happens with the big awards shows, so it would be a couple of months in advance if you‘re lucky, but sometimes there’s a little bit less time because everything’s going around.

Never say never to anything. Never rule out these things. I feel like if an opportunity came along, and it made sense, and it is authentic to me, then sure, but I don‘t have any plans to sort of start making my own clothing brand. I feel like I enjoy doing the styling aspect. If something came up, you would look into all opportunities.

Follow your heart. Don’t give up; work harder than everybody else because that’s really the key. You really do have to work hard; it’s a competitive industry. And the most important thing is resilience because it’s not an easy career to get successful at. You have to sort of have that tenacity to hang in there, even when it might look like you know you’re not having the success that you’ve hoped. Just hang in there because if you work hard and be persistent, then you’ll eventually get there.