It's Always Fun with Friday - An Interview with Nicole Daddona
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Nicole Daddona, also known as Friday does everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. The artist, comedian, fashion designer, and filmmaker sat down with our Community Editor Halima Jibril to discuss creativity, her first album and her plans for world domination in 2022.
Can I ask what your sun, moon and rising signs are? I only ask this because you wear so many hats. Artist, comedian, fashion designer, and filmmaker, I have a feeling you have Pisces in you!
Haha sure. Capricorn sun, Libra moon, and Leo rising. I have the same sun and rising signs as Andy Kaufman, which is a flex I take a lot of pride in. I’m a huge fan of his. Sadly, no Pisces in there, but I do cry at yogurt commercials.
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Did you always know you wanted to wear many creative hats? Usually, as children, we are told we can only do one thing. When did you realise you wanted to do more?
Growing up I was always interested in art and comedy. I’d spend my days drawing cartoons, dressing up as different characters, and really doing whatever I wanted creatively. When I was 11 we had to fill out these worksheets at school about what our future adult lives would look like. I said I wanted to live in California, be a famous actress and comedian, and have my own TV show. Neither of my parents were artists, so they were kind of at a loss as to what to do with me as a kid. I spent most of my time alone in my room with my imagination, my cats, and a huge pile of clothing on the floor at all times. The best way to describe my creativity from childhood up until pretty recently is “feral creativity”.
Other creative kids I grew up with were being put in piano or acting lessons by their parents, but my parents had no idea what to do with my creative energy so they let me do stuff like paint cartoon characters all over my bedroom walls and dress up my cats as Victorian matrons for photos. I was also a fan of putting got living room performances at family functions for whatever relative was tipsy enough to watch. By the time I reached adulthood and it was time to enter the real world I was like “Oh, I have to do the creative work someone else wants me to do for this job? No thank you. I only want to do what I want to do.”
I did the corporate thing for I think six months after college and absolutely hated it. I didn’t have too much guidance when it came to making a career out of my art besides “be a graphic designer” so I bounced around and did sooo many odd jobs just so I could have the freedom to make the art I wanted to make. I really wish someone had given me guidance when I was younger about making a career out of the art I wanted to do. It was hard, but I stuck with it and never stopped believing in myself and eventually figured out a way to make a living doing basically what I used to do inside my childhood bedroom - drawing, making art and fashion, dressing up as stupid characters. All that’s missing is a cat to dress up, but I plan to rectify that this coming year!
This past year I learned something eye-opening that completely changed my perspective on having many creative interests and wearing more than one creative hat: the term multi-hyphenate creative. For anyone who doesn’t know (like me until recently) multi-hyphenate creatives are people who have more than one arm to their creative career and enjoy and often prefer doing more than one skillset or interest. I think in today’s world we are all multi-hyphenates to some degree. Learning that I’m not the only one who is putting a “-" in their career description was comforting and made me feel less like my work was all over the place or incoherent. Some days I want to stop doing so many things and just focus on one artistic path. Yesterday I was convinced I needed to just be a photographer. Tomorrow I’ll probably say I should only be a comedian. When I decided to treat each arm of my creative career like a profession instead of a hobby and step back to see how they can all work together, the more I feel like I’m a creative force to be reckoned with. It’s more like I’m wearing one giant hat and all the different creative expressions my work translates through are tassels hanging off the brim.
We’ve also heard through the grapevine that you’re gearing up to release your first album. Can you tell us a little more about that and the process of making an album?
Yes, this is true! If being an artist, comedian, fashion designer, and filmmaker isn’t enough to hyphenate, I’m adding musician to the list - I blame my overachieving Capricorn sun. I’ve been writing music since I was a pre-teen. It was pretty terrible up until about 6 months ago when it became semi-bearable to listen to. The album is going to be released simultaneously with a musical film (dare I say rock opera?) next year. I love writing songs, but I certainly am no pro at playing instruments or singer, so I knew I needed to find a great producer who could bring my ideas to life musically. I joined TikTok in 2020 like everyone else in lockdown and one of the first pages I came across and fell in love with was Erica Allen-Lubman or Boy Jr. (@BoyJr.69) who is an incredibly talented and hilarious songwriter and producer. I reached out to her via Instagram to see if she’d be interested in working together on the album and she was! So, for the last year I’ve been sending her voice memos recorded in my bathroom and she’s been doing some sort of musical sorcery on her end and turning them into completed songs.
“When I decided to treat each arm of my creative career like a profession instead of a hobby and step back to see how they can all work together, the more I feel like I’m a creative force to be reckoned with.”
Like with my creative work, picking one lane to stay in musically has been challenging for this album. Luckily, the rock opera/musical medium allows for songs to be a bit all over the place genre-wise. So this album has some jazz standards inspired by the great Harry Nilsson, some 60s bubblegum pop, some 90s grunge, some modern pop, some 80s new wave, some disco, and some classic musical numbers.
What do you do to keep yourself motivated and interested in your work?
My neurodivergent mind definitely plays a big role in this! I don’t think I’ve ever been bored.. ever simply because my brain won’t actually let me get bored. I actually have to rein it in quite often because I usually end up have too many things that interest me. I’ll watch one TikTok on cooking French pastries and suddenly find myself searching for “plane tickets to France” and “self-publishing cookbooks” on google, thinking I can drop everything, move abroad and become a world famous pastry chef.
I get down on myself a lot about not being exactly where I want to be in my career yet. I have such a clear vision in my mind of the level of success I want to achieve and I see other people around me that I know getting there, so I know it’s possible. It’s so hard not to compare ourselves to others and their success in the world today. Social media can be a good motivator and networking tool, but it can also be pretty toxic if you let the comparing get to you. I’m a big believer in vision boards as well as writing down goals and what I’m grateful for when wanting a certain goal to manifest. I think my biggest internal motivation is the vision I hold of my highest self and the feeling of what it’s like to be her. Also knowing that each inspired and intuitive creative step I take toward being her coupled with self-love, gratitude, and a sense of worthiness is a giant stride closer to my dream life and achieving my goals.
If you could become one of your characters/works of art, which one would you choose? Why?
As much as I love my characters and works of art, I don’t think I’d want to be any of them! Most of them are unhinged chain smokers with bad teeth. I guess if I had to pick one it would be Mister Banana. He’s pretty stylish and seems like he’d know a lot about poetry and art.
So Magic Society creates lowbrow high fashion clothing and accessories for people of all sizes, focusing on bold and bright designs. The Magic Society website declares that “wearing Magic Society makes you feel like magic!” What made you want to start a fashion brand like this?
I’ve always loved fashion. In middle school I started making my own bags and purses out of found materials like duct tape and grocery bags. In college I designed a few items that I sold on Etsy, but I also became super Christian during the end of high school and all through college, so I felt weirdly guilty about making money from my art instead of becoming a missionary or something. I came up with the name Magic Society when I first moved out to LA in 2012 and drew up some rough sketches of clothing and accessory designs I wanted to make. I didn’t have the means at the time to start up my own clothing line, but when the enamel pin trend came around in like 2014/2015 I realized that making pins was a great affordable way to get started in fashion without much financial risk. Urban Outfitters reached out to me to carry my pins in 2016 and this was a huge confidence boost to know that I was doing something that could be an actual career. Eventually I saved up enough start producing some of my clothing and accessories. I started Magic Society because I wanted to create the clothes and accessories I wish existed in the world. It’s been so lovely to see my designs being worn by beautiful people in the world.
Who is your dream person to dress?
Future me walking down the red carpet on my way to win my Oscar/Grammy/Emmy/Tony.
What is the best advice that you have been given?
Self-love and gratitude will unlock the keys to the universe.
Are you working on anything exciting for 2022? If so, can you share what it is with us?
Yes! Besides releasing my album and album film in 2022, I’m very excited to film a feature film in the spring I wrote and will be directing with my directing partner Adam Wilder (magicsocietypictures.com). We also have a short film we made called Sexy Furby that will be premiering on Canal+ next month, which I’m very excited to get out into the world. Besides that lots of new designs coming to Magic Society as well as a collab with a big retailer who I can’t mention the name of but am very much looking forward to working with. 2022 is also the year that an immersive art show Adam and I created called Furniture World will happen. It got postponed due to Covid, and we’re so excited to finally bring it to life. It’s sponsored by GIPHY, who I love working with. Really looking forward to that! Also starting up a live comedy show in New York City - it will be my first time doing live comedy in front of a live audience instead of alone in my bedroom, so I’m nervous and excited about it all at once. Oh! And getting a cat… finally! I’ve wanted one of my own for forever but my housing situation and travels has always made it difficult. And maybe dressing them Victorian matrons if they’ll let me.
Photography: Adam Wilder | Art direction: Nicole Daddona | Interview: Halima Jibril
