We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nick Portello a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nick, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

The most meaningful project that I’ve ever worked on was Alexis Michelle’s package for RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars. I was an intern for a local designer named Florence that I had been following for years, and though I was grossly unqualified, I was persistent. Though I didn’t make the cut as one of his apprentices the year before, I applied the following year in 2022 and made the team.

Florence has a long-standing reputation of making incredible pieces for drag artists and queer entertainers, something that was important to me. At the time of the internship, I was still in my undergrad at Northeastern University in Boston and was feeling a bit stifled creatively. I had just completed another (unpaid) internship in London, where I was exposed to so much incredible queer talent, and spent lots of time in SoHo and the iconic Heaven nightclub. For the first time, I had formed queer community, and I was excited to find more back home in New York.

Working with Florence was a fun job, but a lot of work to say the least! When I found out that we were working on Alexis Michelle’s package for Drag Race, I could not have been more excited. RuPaul’s Drag Race is a very formative show to me and helped me understand vintage and modern cultural references, gain a deeper knowledge of fashion, and is overall enjoyable to watch. It’s an escapist show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s a motif that I want to embody in my own pieces. The fact that something I physically touched would be on television was also a first for me.

There’s one piece in particular that I really enjoyed. For those who don’t know, each of the runways on the show follows a specific theme. The piece that stands out in my mind was a fruit theme, and Alexis came up with the idea of a blueberry dress. The dress was grand and dramatic, and had a blueberry bustier with a massive tulle skirt. My friend and fellow apprentice, Jem, and I must have tacked over 1,000 squares of hand-cut tulle in blue, gray, and black to achieve this. The skirt was so huge that you could hide someone in it. We also rhinestoned gloves for the dress by hand and assisted on several other looks for her package, but this one was the one I spent the most time on.

When the episode with this dress came out, I was actually in a small town in Croatia on my university’s study abroad program. I was assisting a professor and pulled the episode up on my computer during a guest lecture. When Alexis hit the runway, my heart dropped, and everything stood still for a moment. She looked so effortlessly beautiful, as if her dress was priceless and whipped up in two seconds. It was such a surreal moment to see something that our team put dozens of hours of work into, and for it to be positively received by RuPaul and the queer community is something I will always cherish!

Nick, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Nick Portello, and I’m a 24-year-old creative living in Brooklyn. I work a 9-5 in public relations, and outside of work my passion is creating clothing and having fun with fashion in New York! I have been designing clothes for over five years, and have a deep love of upcycling and secondhand materials. I have worked with everything from air mattresses to dog beds and have turned them into trenchcoats, matching sets, hoodies – you name it!

My work is inspired by camp in fashion and definitely has some influences from Moschino, Viktor & Rolf, KidSuper, and more. I was also an intern for The Blonds for one season of New York Fashion Week and drew a lot of inspiration from them. I would love for those wearing my clothes to feel beautiful and cool inside them, but also have a sense of humor and enjoy what they’re wearing.

What sets me apart from others is that my pieces are the perfect cross-section of sustainability and camp. Whether it’s a dramatic jacket made out of a trampoline or a five piece set from thrifted bedsheets, New York City is not ready for these looks!

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

For those local to New York City, I would love to recommend FABSCRAP. They are an organization that offers designers free fabric in exchange for volunteering. Located in Brooklyn, volunteers sort through bags of donated materials to see what can be repurposed, which is surprisingly therapeutic. After a few hours of volunteering, they have a “shop” where you can take five pounds of fabric and notions for free. It’s so much fun, and everyone there is so warm and friendly. The time truly flies by! I love this place because you’re doing good for the environment and can also pick up materials for free, which can be costly in the Big Apple!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Something that I’m in the process of learning is that nobody cares as much as you do what you’re wearing or how you look. When I first started sewing and wearing my outfits in public, I was nervous because they weren’t store-quality. Some of the hems weren’t perfectly even, and some seams were puckered. That being said, it was important to me to wear these pieces in public and show the world my creativity, so I did it anyway.

I felt so uncomfortable in the beginning, and sometimes still do, especially since moving to Brooklyn from Long Island. It’s difficult to be perceived, and I often didn’t think people would get what I was offering. Growing up in a more conservative home town, nobody played with fashion or expressed themselves creatively. I think that living in a city allows people to more easily find their tribe and push the envelope. The truth is, it doesn’t matter if people understand as long as I feel creatively fulfilled. I love it when people ask me why I’m wearing a certain piece or sneak a photo of me in public, thinking I’m not looking! It makes me feel like my pieces are worth remembering – hopefully they aren’t making fun of me!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @nickportello
• Other: For styling or partnership inquries, please message [email protected]!

Image Credits

The lead photo of me in the blue outfit is by Leo Brooklyn @leobrooklynbaby
The photo of me in the yellow outfit with legwarmers and beanie is by Eva Deming @evaafilm