By the pen name of MercuRea, Ana M. Valido is a fashion designer and writer born in Spain but currently living in Netherlands.

‘I started writing at a very young age, my mother was always reading and there were tons of books in our home so I got the reading habit very early in my life, but I never dedicated too much time to it (apart from writing fanfictions) until I got diagnosed with anxiety disorder.
I’ve suffered this condition since I can remember, but getting to know what actually happened with me at an adult age was very difficult since I had to “unlearn” behaviours and unuseful coping mechanism.

As a way of doing this I started to write, to get to know myself better, and to be aware of triggers and behaviours that were harmful to me. I am a lover of philosophy, psychology, of mysticism and occultism, I think that all of these materias can be applied to the self-growth, that’s why you’ll find plenty of symbolism on my poetry”

“Regarding my fashion brand, I started designing lolita fashion clothing and accesories around fifteen years ago, and sometimes it’s difficult to shake the habit of creating on that direction, but I prefeer to define my creations as “romantic” or “vintage inspired” as I feel like sometimes sticking to one tag or deffinition can be frustrating and limitating”

“I don’t like to call myself a fashion designer or a writer, althought those are my major areas of creative working, for me art is an expression coming from the inner world of a person to the outside, and that’s what I’m always trying to follow with any of my creations; I don’t want to put limits to myself”