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As if Miami needed another reason to love Marcello Hernández, the homegrown comedian wore (and shouted out) two Calle Ocho joyerias at his Met Gala debut on Monday, repping for both his Cuban and Dominican heritage.
“My mom made me this with Sammy Jeweler en La Calle Ocho in Miami,” Hernández told interviewer La La Anthony on the red carpet, pointing to a pin on his left jacket pocket. “I have an Angel de la Guarda, un azabache (stone for protection), and larimar, which is a Dominican stone.”
Hernández then pointed to another pin on his right arm, this one from Santayana Jewelers, just off Eighth Street in Tamiami (917 SW 122nd Ave.). “And this is the traditional azabache, with ‘Dios me bendiga‘ [God bless me] in Spanish.”
The comedian, who hosted weekly reviews on Only in Dade before becoming a breakout star on Saturday Night Live, shouted out the homegrown businesses alongside Thom Browne, the New York-based designer of his suit.
The clip quickly went viral on social media and was picked up by national media, including the Today Show, which posted an image of Hernández and his stunning Dominican-born architect girlfriend, Ana Amelia Batlle Cabral, with the caption, “Calle Ocho shoutout! Marcello brought a little bit of home to the #MetGala.”
“This is a big deal for every jeweler on Eighth Street,” Elena Santayana, of Santayana Jewelers, tells New Times. The third-generation Cuban-American designer says Hernández placed the order for his ‘Dios Me Bendiga’ pin on her website.
“I said, hold on, Marcello Hernández with two Ls?”
After some digging, Santayana was confident that the mystery order was, in fact, placed by the comedian and assumed he was purchasing the pin for an upcoming baptism, explaining that in Cuban culture, the pin is traditionally a gift for babies.
“I thought he was going to be a padrino [godfather],” she says.
She decided to leave a funny note in the package — “OMG OMG OMG, is it you? Yes, no, maybe” — but had no idea he planned to wear the piece on fashion’s biggest night. “I was shocked!”
Martha Lima, owner of Sammy’s Joyeria (1833 SW Eighth St.), on the other hand, knew exactly what Hernández’s mother bought his pin for.
She describes the azabache (a smooth black stone) she sold her as a “hater blocker,” a piece of traditional Cuban jewelry used for protection, kind of like an evil eye. She also procured the guardian angel pendant Hernández wore, but not the Dominican larimar (which New Times was unable to track down).
“Imagine,” she says. “We are very proud of making him shine.”
