Today was a different day for Pablo Gamboa. She couldn’t put on the heels that she usually wears every day, since she was in NY visiting an expo dedicated to the design of hotel spaces.

“I usually wear heels all the time, but I’m at a design fair and it’s hard to walk around in them all day at these types of events. Imagine walking down the street. expo in heels needle,” he says in a telephone interview.

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But this custom has an important reason behind it, related to the speech of odio and homophobia that currently permeates Mexico and the world.

“I started wearing heels four years ago, when one of my friends was sent to the hospital after a beating which he received from four men outside a bar and left him in a coma. When I arrive at the hospital and ask a friend also from the community LGBTQ+ What had happened, his response was: ‘they beat him for being a faggot’. That situation left me very bad… I couldn’t understand how they could beat someone to the point of leaving them in a coma for the simple reason of being gay, so I wanted to create a way to communicate a message of inclusion, at least in social circles. in which I operate, and create a form of activism also as a businessman,” says Pablo, who at 30 years of age has founded three companies under the name Indigo Creative Studio.

Under that firm he has created important projects around the world, including a hotel in Spain decorated with pure Mexican design.

“It seems that we are a very culture cool that of the designers, very advanced and very avant-garde, but not so much, the truth is that the discourse heteronormative continues to exist and govern these types of areas.

“At the end of the day in this design fair where I am, I recognize that I meet very people cool, but they are still extremely traditionalist. Lots of very square businessmen and businesswomen. Even though we are in NY, to the majority of people who showcase their brands and workit is shocking to see a man in heelsBetween five and seven thousand people have passed through here and I have not seen a man in heels.

“Nowadays people associate a man in heels with the transformismwith illiterate people or sex services, they cannot imagine a businessman riding in heels and with a suit. That’s why I’m trying to build an image that represents reliability. It is changing the narrative of what people are used to seeing because what you don’t see you don’t normalize, my friends who know me and see me every day, see me completely the same and are no longer surprised, they don’t care if I bring or not heels, because they value me as a successful person, capable and professional no matter what I’m wearing.

On the issue of hate crimes and the continuous cases related to discrimination, he says that there is much to be doner since the LGBTQ+ community continues to be in danger.

“Mexico was crowned among the countries with the most cases of hate crimes. I think it is necessary to get people to sit down to talk at the table, to discuss and reflect on this issue but not from their personal perspective but rather they must participate from the same discussion table.”

He states that Homophobic thinking not only comes from the heterosexual community, but from the same community LGBTQ+.

“The community has a lot to work on. People in the community say ‘How can I be homophobic if I’m gay’ but it is not like that, we still live in the heteronorm that we are men and we like other men, but they have to see themselves as such, and they have to comply with the norm of looking like menstandard written by people heterosexual. I say this above all from the fact that everyone can be whatever they want, as long as it does not harm anyone. We have to understand that we should not give our opinion about the bodies of people who cannot talk about what they feel. people decide to do with their body and their image.

“You have to understand that a shirt is a shirt, heels are heels… These cannot determine a gender, just like clothing.

“For me the perfect world, a space of acceptancewhere all opinions are taken into account, and where we can be what we want to be without fear of retaliation”, he expressed.

Seeks to create decent spaces

He interior designer not only thinks about the responsibility of creating spaces where the community LGBTQ+ can be seen, valued and appreciated, but in his work as a design professional, he is committed to offering decent environments that meet people’s needs and where they can live happily.

“The business and corporate part It is born from my personal philosophy, it is created as a result of the user who will be the one who lives in the project and that it completely covers your needs.

“People think that interior design is for rich people and for a few. There is still a lot to learn about what an interior designer really does, no matter how renowned his or her background or projects are. Our challenge is to generate ideas to improve the quality of life of usersbut people are not familiar with the idea of ​​paying for design in Mexico.”

The expert affirms that spaces are increasingly smaller and in Mexicothe costs are high to be able to have so few square meters, so thinking about a design optimum it distances people from the real function of the design.

“Interior design can be a luxurious activity, and this makes people in mass populations not approach designers and therefore, the profession becomes unknown to the masses. This is because all these erroneous ideas arise from its conception, thinking that it is for crazy budgets, that it is only for 50 meters upwards, that only a certain type of people can decorate their house or apartment, because it is a very expensive thing, so It is necessary to change this perception and know that currently a person of limited resources can have a well-designed space, as experimental and creative as anyone else.”

In Mexico City The construction of spaces of 40 square meters is authorized, or even less, this thanks to uncontrolled urban growth, to which Pablo believes, “This is a frame of reference so that we have an idea of ​​how much the spaces have been reduced, and it is very strong for me because it should be just the opposite, that is where you really need a designer.

“Such a limited space where You must meet very specific needs, For a designer it is almost impossible, or in any case, you are going to generate a space that does not cover one hundred percent the needs of whoever lives there.

“We do not understand that the way in which light is used, the colors that are applied, the way in which textures coexist with space, they interact directly with your quality of life, with your tranquility, with your anxiety, with stimulus control, and the relaxation capacity that should exist in your home. After the pandemic we reflected a lot on this, we opened the construction company in 2020, the confinement began where everyone realized that they did not have an adequate space to work, so they saw how the sunlight came in and they did not know how to take advantage of it, people I didn’t know how to take advantage of its space, suddenly the pace of life makes you forget how important your house is because you always spend it outside, and if you don’t like your house you look for a way to find a suitable place where you can be happy ”.

The above was a stimulus for Pablo to further develop his creativity, to achieve optimal rooms no matter how many square meters they have.

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“We are stimulable beings and we respond to the environment based on the stimuli it gives us. Limiting ourselves to thinking about life in two or three dimensions is a problem, thinking that a well-designed space is only about light and furniture We are in a serious mistake. It has to do with proportions, aromas, visual complements, in the end, there is a design trend in Mexico based on the idea that the designer works according to his creativity, but I think it’s through his ego, and that plays against the audience, above all. because that designer says I work with concrete, gray fabrics and it doesn’t come out of the same because that’s what appears in the magazines and what everyone has.

“My intention when I created the studio was to move away from that concept where everyone puts their name on their company, that’s why I decided to call my signature Indigo, which is a color created from the balance between reds and blues. The importance of this is to understand and be that utilitarian part between the end user and his desires. Take what the user really wants to shape their space; He doesn’t know how to do it, they don’t hire you to print your vision in his house, they hire you to understand him and print his vision of the environment he wants to create, because at the end of the day, it’s him who lives there, it’s him. the one who is going to enjoy it, and the one who has to see himself reflected in that space when it comes time to enter, not you, even if you appear in the magazines later,” he concludes.