Put a 🧦 in it. A Happy Sock, that is. Paula Maso (she/her) is the creative director of Happy Socks, a brand that plans to spread color to every corner (and pair of feet) of the world. “When I started at Happy Socks, the team was super small and my role was to solely design prints,” she says. “Today, I’m in charge of the overall creative expression of the business: from product, to art direction, retail concepts, the look and feel of our ecomm, and everything in between—as long as it entails aesthetic aspects of it.” Sounds like a roaring sock-cess if you ask us.

All silliness (and socks) aside, Paula also has a serious passion for chic scarves: “About two years ago, I started a small scarf label called Quinta Maso. The name derives from my family’s house in Caracas, as quinta means house in Spanish. I wanted to keep this very small and personal, and draw inspiration from both past and present, blending my roots of the color and maximalism of Venezuela and the simplicity and austerity of Sweden, where I reside now.”

Speaking of roots, Paula’s never not thinking about hers, as her Venezuelan background impacts her both personally and professionally. “I’m the third generation of immigrants in my family,” she shares. “My grandparents were from the north of Spain, in Galicia. During the Franco dictatorship, a lot of people from Spain had to leave everything behind. My mother was born in Venezuela but left while my aunt stayed for many years until my grandparents could afford to go back and bring her to Caracas.”

“So, my mother always struggled with finding her identity, feeling fully Venezuelan within her environment, but being pulled back to Galician culture from her parents,” she continues. “For me, it’s been a step further and I’ve always considered myself to be Venezuelan, making it a painful thing to see your country deteriorate, feeling like they are stuck somewhere between cultures, neither this nor that.”

But after a short stint in Barcelona, Paula dug deeper into what it means to be Venezuelan, especially because the cultural differences are so stark against Sweden: “Through this mirror that is constantly in front of me, I have gained a greater understanding of what makes Venezuelans who we are, and I’ve never been more proud to come from where I come from, with all the good and the bad. And if there’s one thing that all Venezuelans would agree to, is that it doesn’t matter what hardship comes our way, we will always give a big smile to others.”

To share a bit more of her culture with us, Paula wants everyone to try her Arepas con Perico recipe. “Arepas are the staple food in Venezuela, and you can eat them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or at 4 A.M. after the club,” she says. “It’s our bread and our icon. My mother made these for breakfast every Sunday morning, and the delicious smell of the Sofrito would make the house smell amazing. In Venezuela, Sundays are the days where you traditionally go out and eat with your family, and this was the perfect starter dish every time.”