PRABAL GURUNG dress, AGMES NYC earrings, ALEXIS BITTAR choker and bracelets. Photographed by Shana Purnama
Regardless if it’s a matter of crunching numbers or earning crowns, for Filipino-American beauty queen and data scientist Marizza Delgado, the possibilities are endless.
A typical morning for the newly crowned Miss New York USA starts like this: she gets ready for work as a data scientist at Rent the Runway, where she uses her skills to collect data for smoother user experiences. Then, depending on what the day calls for, the beauty queen switches codes and prepares for interviews and speaking engagements as Miss New York USA, or packs for an actual runway or shoot as a fashion model. For a generation who grew up with Barbie movies and Hannah Montana, it seems natural to live vicariously through women like Marizza Delgado: someone who enjoys the “best of both worlds.”
Delgado is a first generation Filipino immigrant, and is the first Filipina to hold the title of Miss New York USA. As somebody who started joining pageants in her teenage years, the title holder says the victory was very well earned. “This was such a dream of mine, and honestly has been years in the making.”
She credits her ability to teeter between her roles to her Filipino heritage. “I feel like inherently Filipina women are very multifaceted, multi-talented, and we’re able to juggle so many different roles at once,” she says. “That gives me the confidence to do all the things that I want, and not just to fit into one box.”
Delgado’s natural interest in both fashion and technology directly bleeds into her work with Rent the Runway, an online fashion rental service. Rent the Runway was co-founded in 2009 by then-students Jenn Hyman and Jenny Fleiss, who sought to create a rental service so people could rent designer items instead of buying them brand new. Aside from being cost-effective, this tech-driven fashion initiative also amplifies efforts for sustainability all over the world.
Delgado further explains it as an initiative that promotes environmental care, especially in fashion. “Deep down, I’m an environmentalist,” Delgado notes. “I’m very passionate about combating climate change. At Rent the Runway, where we [call ourselves] ‘the closet in the cloud,’ we are disrupting the fashion industry by making it more sustainable through being able to use a piece of clothing more than once. Since 2010, we were able to divert 1.6 million pieces of clothing from landfills.”
For Delgado, her work as a woman in STEM is just as important as holding a beauty pageant title. Aside from her day-to-day data scientist job, Delgado is also affiliated with the organization Girls Who Code, a nonprofit organization that encourages young women to venture into computer science. “I want to inspire young girls to pursue careers in male-dominated fields. In tech, only 25 percent of tech roles are held by women, but only 10% are held by women of color,” she explains. “Through leading by example, I want to show these young girls that they deserve a seat at the table. They belong here and that we can close this gender gap in technology in our lifetime.”
Photo by Shana Purnama. Assisted by Vince Hong Cailin. Styled by Suthee Ritthaworn. Assisted by Siwa Chai. Makeup by Jason Alex Yapching. Hair by Francheska Nieves.
