Today we’d like to introduce you to Mr. Mostacho.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My name is Charly Cepeda — I’m a queer interdisciplinary artist and the creative force behind Mr. Mostacho.
My path hasn’t followed a straight line, and that is exactly why my work is so textured. I came from Bogotá, where my background was in numbers and city planning — not exactly the typical origin story for a surrealist artist. But creativity was always underneath everything. It started as a childhood fascination with sketching clothes, and it found its real catalyst the moment I discovered makeup.
That’s when Mr. Mostacho was born — and with it, a doorway into worlds I didn’t know I was allowed to imagine.
Queerness, for me, has always meant seeing reality as something fluid and negotiable. My work lives in that intersection of creature design, performance wear, and makeup artistry — the space between what’s visible and what’s hidden. Moving to Miami in 2023 cracked that open even further. Working alongside Olga Saretsky and the team at Kikimora Fashion taught me that design isn’t just about garments; it’s about constructing entire universes.
Because I handle the entire lifecycle of a character — from the initial surrealist concept and makeup design to the technical pattern drafting and final assembly at the sewing machine — I don’t just sketch ideas; I physically engineer them into reality. What started as a simple black-and-white mask has grown into a whole ecosystem of characters, each one pulling from something as intimate as a personal memory or as vast as the cosmos. Surrealism became my native language — not as an aesthetic, but as a way of telling the truth sideways.
By 2024, I was collaborating with the drag and burlesque communities, and in 2025 I presented my first fashion show at Art Basel. Around the same time, a grant from Live Arts Miami and Juggerknot Theatre for the Miami Immersive Intensive reframed everything. I understood that Mr. Mostacho isn’t a brand or a single character — it’s an expanding universe of unseen worlds, and I’m the one mapping it.
I open doors to realities that already exist but haven’t been seen yet. And this is only the beginning.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Not at all — and honestly, I’m grateful for that. Every difficult moment has been a teacher. I’d organize my struggles into two categories: the Internal Battle and the Technical Evolution.
The internal one is the relationship with anxiety and what I call the Inner Saboteur — that voice that tries to make you feel small right when you’re on the edge of something real. I’ve stopped trying to fight it. Instead I’ve learned to invite it in for a coffee, understand where it’s coming from, and keep moving anyway. It’s an ongoing practice, not a destination.
The technical side has been a process of rebuilding myself from the ground up. I arrived in a new country, in a new language, with a background in engineering and no formal training in fashion. Everything had to be learned — pattern-making, color theory, design proportions, an entirely new creative vocabulary. There was no shortcut. I built it slowly, with books on my lap, while holding different jobs to sustain myself. That process of starting from zero, more than once, in more than one way — that’s what shaped me. And I’m still learning every day.
Through all of it, my family has been my foundation. They’re the reason I keep showing up.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’ve always seen my work as more than just fashion. I create from my own universe — creatures, wearable identities, beings that live somewhere between light and darkness, between the human and the divine. I work with unconventional materials, sculpture, 3D construction and makeup. My obsession is with what exists in that in-between space, and I build from there.
Parallel to that, I design for performers and artists who aren’t just looking for a garment but for a second skin — a way to tell their deepest stories visually. I feel a profound connection to the queer community for this reason. Many of these artists have discovered a hidden persona within themselves, and I help give that persona a physical form.
What I’m most proud of is my story — the resilience it took to get here, the capacity to adapt and rebuild. My journey has been defined by constant effort and a commitment to my creativity, even when the path was unclear.
What sets me apart is the unique prism through which I see reality. Every piece I make starts with an obsession — a feeling, a being, an energy that needs to exist. I follow that until it becomes something you can wear.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
To trust. Trust in my process, trust in my instincts, and trust that the universe is always speaking — you just have to learn how to listen.
I used to think the hardest part of this journey was patience, and it is. In a world driven by social media, it’s easy to mistake visibility for progress and feel like you’re falling behind. But I’ve realized that patience is only possible when you genuinely trust where you’re going.
Because I’m a perfectionist, that trust doesn’t come naturally. I’ve had to learn self-compassion alongside it — to stop, hug myself, and acknowledge how far I’ve already come. Every small victory counts. I have to be as kind to myself as I am demanding of my work.
The most important thing I’ve learned is to keep your eyes open. The answers are always already there. You just have to be present enough to see them.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mr.mostacho_o/
Image Credits
Alon Skuy
Ricardo Cornejo
Brooke Davanzo
