Friend of the blog Mark Sabino’s accessories biz just blew up! That’s called the Rihanna effect baby. She wore his floppy Yankees Franken-hat in her Fenty campaign.

We jumped on the horn with the Pratt grad to discuss. Check out Mark's jewelry and other designs on his IG, and hit him up there directly for customs, especially music logo jewelry–he’s the sickest doing it.

So what just happened?

So what just happened was pictures finally came out of a hat that Rihanna bought from me two months ago. I did not know she was going to wear it so independently and put it up on her own page like that.

Two months ago her stylist got in touch with me and said she was interested in the hat, and put in a custom order for one. I tried to keep it under wraps until proof came out.

That’s a lot to sit on.

I had no idea if pictures would come out ever. I was hoping one day it would pop up and it did!

How old are you and how long you been designing?

I’m 23, and I guess formal designing five years.

And you have an e-boutique, no wholesale?

I have a website that I sell stuff off of, and a short gallery of paintings I did, but most of my business comes through Instagram and Twitter DMs. It’s all custom ideas and custom sizing that people want. It would be too tricky to include so many options on a site.

Would you ever call your work bootleg?

Some of it. There’s just a little bit of that bootleg feel. To try and avoid any kind of trouble, I call it homage through my medium. Because it really comes from a place of love for an artist I like, and I want to pay homage to something I enjoy in my own way.

Did you make just one Yankees hat?

In order to make hers, I had to tear up the one I made for myself. She has the only one in existence right now.

What could the Rihanna thing give you?

Realistically I’m hoping...I knew that sort of exposure would bring a bigger audience to my work, and it did already. What I’m really hoping for is the inside-baseball part of the industry, for other people to be like, “Where’d she get that? Because really, as random as it was for me, I’m assuming it’s random for everyone else too. Because nobody knows where she got it. I’ve seen it credited as a random Yankees bucket hat online, and not specifically…

Mark Sabino.

Yeah. Because I would love to connect with stylists and have my stuff in more photoshoots.

Yeah those are still happening, even with COVID.

Right. I’m glad that all this was a digital thing, that she put it on her Instagram and her Twitter. Because that’s the great unifier through this whole shit that is COVID. I don’t have to worry about networking or going to like, “the right party” right now. Everyone’s online.