The People Behind Mikey Yaw

Not every origin story starts in a boardroom or with a business plan. This one starts in Ohio, in a high school field trip to the Cincinnati Art Museum, in front of a Picasso and in a sunny, tropical country in South America.

Mikey grew up in Ohio, came of age on MTV, and absorbed Prince and Madonna the way most kids absorb everything — completely and without filters. Music, image, performance, the idea that you could construct yourself into something — that was the education. When he stood in front of a Picasso for the first time, something clicked that has never unclicked. Art wasn't something that happened in museums. It was a way of seeing.

That opened a door. Behind it: abstract painting, psychedelic music, poetry, a years-long exploration of different spiritualities, and a growing obsession with the idea that what you put on your body is a statement whether you intend it to be or not. People in Ohio thought his approach to fashion was either bold and modern or deeply weird. Sometimes both. He took that as a good sign.

In 2007 he moved to New York City. The first chapter was chaos — the necessary kind. Arriving in a city that has no patience for who you were before you got there, reassembling yourself from scratch, figuring out what actually survived the move and what didn't. What survived was the point of view and his imagination.

Dellon arrived in New York from Guyana by way of a modeling career that started in the Caribbean and needed a bigger stage. He carries the visual vocabulary of a place where color is not an accent — it's a language. Vibrant, layered, joyful without being naive. His aesthetic is Caribbean in its bones and his spirit is, by every account, pure positivity. Not performance positivity. The real kind.

When Mikey and Dellon met, the fit was immediate. Not because they're the same — they're not — but because they were exactly different in the right ways. Mikey's abstract sensibility and Dellon's preference for vibrant colors and exuding positivity. Ohio and Guyana. The designer and the face. Two people who had both, in their own ways, built themselves into something specific and intentional.

Dellon looked at the art Mikey was making and said it should be on clothing. He was right.

Mikey Yaw launched in 2023. Mikey designs everything, handles the technical work, shoots the photography, and runs the marketing. Dellon brings perspective to the designs and is primarily the face of the brand — which makes sense, because he has always known how to wear something like he means it.

The brand exists because both of them got tired of the alternative. Tired of hype. Tired of logos that do the talking so the design doesn't have to. Tired of clothing made for people who want to be seen wearing a brand rather than people who want to wear something worth looking at.

Mikey Yaw is for people who felt the same way and were waiting for make clothing that spoke their language and matched their vibe.