Born between Brooklyn and Queens – right on the Bushwick-Ridgewood border – Mellany Sánchez’s world has always been immersed with Nuyorican culture: salsa music on the streets, piraguas in the summer, and street domino games outside bodegas.

She attended the prestigious LaGuardia Arts High School, alma mater to some of today’s most notable graduates – Liza Minnelli, Nicki Minaj, Isaac Mizrahi, and Wesley Snipes, to name a few – so as a second-generation American, she is no stranger to pressures of succeeding.

“From a very early age, you have this sense of needing to do something that will leave a mark on the city that already has so much history,” she said.

At the age of 15, Sánchez landed her first gig in retail picking up afterschool shifts at Laces, a women’s sneaker boutique on Mott Street that was decades ahead of its time.

Sneaker culture has an undoubted connection to New York City. In a city where families are stacked on top of each other in apartments, sneakers are a vehicle for people to express their individuality.

“We really had to find these nuanced ways to explain what was different about us, and that may have been by tweaking your sneakers: the way you laced them, the way you took care of them, the colorways you sported,” she said. “Sneakers have been a way for Black and Latin people to share our ideas and illuminate our differences, so for that I’m thankful to footwear. What an easy and accessible item to do that with, especially when your ways of expressing those things are limited.”

Her time at Laces was a perfect position for Sánchez, whose passion for footwear at such a young age made her an indispensable go-to source for product knowledge. She continued working footwear retail jobs, including one for Ronnie Fieg. Unbeknownst to both, their future would collide once more when he hired her a second time to work at Kith.

Sánchez’s time as Creative Director at Kith tried her product knowledge in every way, pulling in from her retail experiences to cement the branding and visuals for the store, then still only a small retail space behind a store named Atrium. Today, Kith boasts a multi-location, multi-brand Men’s, Women’s and Kids circular shopping experience.

Sánchez’s taste and approach caught the eye of Vogue, where she landed her next gig during the magazine’s 125th year anniversary. She worked in the archives to repurpose content digitally for dot-com and social. Her ultimate goal was to bridge the gap between the next generation of readers who recognize the publication as fashion’s “holy grail,” but who need to be convinced, as in “pulling out the reasons to make a good case for the younger age group who may not buy it just yet.”

In 2017, she received a call from Drake’s team and was hired to be his stylist. “Styling is a vehicle and there are incredible stylists out there, but I also think I take on more a communications role about an image,” she explained.

Working with the Grammy award-winning rapper, she’s collaborated with major fashion brands like Louis Vuitton and Prada to create custom stage wear for the musician’s world tours, album covers, photoshoots, awards shows, personal goods, and merch.

She credits her relentless pursuit of being classic and creating classic from the importance of tradition in Latin cultures. Alongside the founder of Awake NY Angelo Baque, Sánchez published a zine called Puerto Rico Me Encanta, whose original intent was to chronicle her mother’s upbringing as a first-generation Nuyorican. It organically evolved into an homage of Latina women in New York.

“I collected so many images from Latinas all over the diaspora. I was amazed to find that while we find so many nuances and differences, when we’re all put together, there’s something that’s really shared among us all,” she observed. “We have a really incredible way of looking classic — of finding what works for us and cherishing it generation after generation.”

You’ll see her pursuit of transcendence in her work, her personal style, and even down to the way she communicates.

For Sánchez, paving the way for the Latinx community can be done through three actionable steps: transparency, mentorship, and being well-researched.

“Providing any good energy toward our people, our history, the work we’re doing, and the work that we’re going to do is our responsibility,” she said. “We are in a place now and have power to set some new norms. Latinx Heritage Month is an opportunity to do so: to make people aware in a justifiably prominent time by having us highlight us.”

Editor’s Note: This feature is part of an ongoing editorial series celebrating Latinxs in fashion during National Latin Heritage Month.  Click here to access the series.