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Jillian Mercado      

Actress, Model & Activist for Greater Disability Representation in the Entertainment Industry

Jillian Mercado is a disabled Latinx model, an advocate for greater representation in the industry, and an actress who has appeared in campaigns for Nordstrom, Target, Olay, and on the cover of the first digital September issue of Teen Vogue.

She is currently a guest star on the 20th TV/FX series "Dying For Sex" and previously starred as Maribel, a recurring role on the Showtime series, "The L Word: Generation Q," opposite Jennifer Beals.

Growing up, Mercado developed a love for fashion, but the industry’s Eurocentric and ableist beauty standards meant that she didn’t see herself represented. A native New Yorker born to Dominican parents and diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in her early teens, she resolved to redress this inequality by entering the fashion industry herself. She studied a degree in marketing at FIT, going on to intern at Allure magazine in a bid to “learn the politics behind fashion so I could hire people who looked like me,” she said at Women of the World’s 10th annual summit.

Mercado uses her platform to push for greater representation in the industry, saying in an interview with Bustle “I just hope that [underrepresented people] see themselves in me, in any way possible.” Her activism, which focuses on the intersection of gender and disability, has included working with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in 2018 to reduce inequality, one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Speech Topics

UNBRAINWASHING SOCIETY

From the moment Jillian Mercado burst onto the fashion scene less than two years ago, she’s been making headlines. As one of the most visible and successful models with a disability (spastic muscular dystrophy), Jillian has become an important voice and advocate on behalf of persons with disabilities. But interestingly, Jillian didn’t start her career in front of the camera. She lived and breathed fashion from a young age, as her parents (both immigrants from the Dominican Republic) worked in an embroidery factory and shoe store. She studied fabrics, learned to sew, and then got hit by the fashion bug.

With a degree in merchandising management from New York’s esteemed Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), she worked with top photographers and at Tumblr, was the creative director of We The Urban magazine, and immersed herself in the business of fashion. On a whim, she submitted herself to an open call for a Diesel worldwide ad campaign, which immediately went viral. The buzz was instant, and she soon appeared in campaigns for Olay, Beyoncé, Bumble 100,

Calvin Klein fragrance, Nordstrom, Target, and Tommy Hilfiger. She was featured on Teen Vogue ’s first ever September digital cover and has been profiled in editorial features including Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Glassbook, Jejeune and Herring and Herring magazines. She’s also featured in Zoe Saldana’s upcoming documentary series Breaking Glass.

Off-camera, Jillian is in demand as a speaker and panelist on numerous issues around accessibility and visibility for the disability community --not only in the fashion world, but in all walks of life. She’s addressed conferences sponsored by the United Nations, Google, Microsoft, and Tommy Hilfiger and she continues to do all she can to show that “disability doesn’t have to be ugly, it should be embraced. I wish I had that role model growing up, but to be that role model is great.”

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