Mery

Hi guys how are you?

For those who don't know me, I'm Mery Saporito and I'm 25 years old and I'm an Italian fashion illustrator,
Mery is the name that was given to me by my friends, I hated when they called me Mery .. I was born in Calabria and as a child they always called me Marì, I really didn't like Mery. Then over time I got used to it, it's like this name was a sort of shield that protects me from who I really am, Mery is the beautiful part of me, the brave one, I hide behind this name and I feel safe.

It makes me strange to talk to you now here and tell you how it all started and let you discover everything about me step by step.

I still remember all the drawings I did as a child, these fashion sketches and I was inspired by how my sister dressed, I was already very creative as a child and I'll tell you more, I was already selling my drawings at 5 years old, my own parents and my relatives have been bought my drawing for 1 or 2 euros maximum, but I have sold so many that I bought my first phone in middle school by myself, with the money in the piggy bank.

Given my passion for drawing, I enrolled in the Liceo Artistico in Bergamo, but it wasn't easy, what job could I have done studying art? It is thanks to my sister that I was able to convince my parents and to sign up.

It was in that high school that it all began, with the repost of a drawing of mine on the official page of the Maison Valentino brand. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was about to start the physical education class, I was in the gym and I had recently posted an illustration I had made of Valentino's dress, I'm about to put the phone away in the bag and I get the notification "@MaisonValentino has tagged you in a post ". I did not believe it

But you know the funny thing? Actually not so funny .. because in the drawing I had written VALENINO instead of VALENTINO .. and that's how all the comments made fun of me by writing "where is T haha?" But that moment I will never forget, because it is from there that the brands and characters such as Roberto Cavalli, Stefano Gabbana, MSGM, Anna dello Russo, Bianca Balti, Marchesa, Chiara Ferragni, Georgina Rodriguez and many others.

I was 17, I was very happy, I wasn't aiming for that, I was happy because the drawings were real they weren't thought of at the table, they were sincere. That year I received an email from Oscar de la Renta, he asked me to create the illustrations for their Instagram page, to me, I was still in high school, I had to do everything myself, write the emails in English in a formal way and be able to draw what they expected.

It's not as easy as it sounds, but it all seemed so natural to me, I was learning to do a job on my own that no one taught me and I didn't know existed.

TO BE CONTINUED

xx

Mery