Mel Racho

Jason Creps

The Collector

February 14, 2008

Mel Racho, 27, is a video artist who teaches motion graphics at Columbia College and Web-site construction at After School Matters. She lives in Logan Square.

Tell me about your outfit.

I’m wearing capri pants for a really tall woman, but they are regular-length jeans on me. My bow tie . . . I teach at Columbia and the chair of the TV department died a few years back. I found all these super-old 70s and 80s and silk vintage ties and bow ties of his in the lost and found. I feel bad that I pilfered a dead man’s tie collection, but they were in the lost and found.

I have a collection of sweaters and sweater vests. This one I got at a thrift store when I lived in Portland. I have a belt buckle collection as well. This one is a lion with a movable knocker, it looks a little bit like a towel holder. I got it from a metal studio in Olympia.

I’m a creature of habit. It lessens the work for me to just have collections of things. I look the same a lot of the time, I just do different combinations of those things.

What’s the look you’re going for here?

I guess I’m trying to go for dapper professor, which is what I want to be when I grow up, but I hit more along the lines of computer programmer. I get told a lot that I look like a gay boy, which I take as a compliment.

Who are your style influences?

My dad. He looks like a Japanese golfer—I mean that in a good way. He’s a round, rotund Asian man. He does a lotta argyle, monochromatic outfits, matching your shoes to your belt, that kind of thing.

What do you do for fun?

Hang out with my girlfriend. Work on my videos. My average night, I go to my local dive bars with friends. If I feel crazy, I like to do stuff like go bowling. —Jessica Hopper