Meet JACLYN HYDRA
Creative polymath Jaclyn Hydra is ready to take a leap. The 29 year-old singer, writer and clothing designer has spent her youth coyly sharing her passions and talents on all the usual social media venues for friends and followers to enjoy. But now that the multifaceted millennial is pushing a special new decade of adulthood, she finds herself open to more exposure, with a strong vision and message to share through music, fashion and art.
Born on Thursday - January 17, 1991, under a different surname, Jaclyn still finds emotional resonance in the fact that she came into the world at the very start of Operation Desert Storm, the U.S.’s expulsion of Iraqi forces in Kuwait the cradle of civilization. Since then the native New Yorker has seen storms swarm all around her. She says,
“We’ve been at war since the day I was born.”
In response to this external stimuli, Jaclyn created a world of art and music around her to inoculate herself from it all. This imagined world of Marvel/DC Comics superheroes, fashion magazines, and Nu-Metal protected and nourished Jaclyn, who changed her name throughout her youth from her infamous birth name to HIV and then Hyde, but presently, to Hydra, like the three-headed feminine superhero. “I like that it still has the resonance of Jekyll and Hyde, while also the implication that I’m multifaceted… and maybe a little moody,” says Hydra, whose raspy, staccato speaking voice belies a shy, perhaps even introverted, and self-deprecating young artist. She sounds at once confident and unsure, perhaps confidently unsure, if that’s possible. There’s so much she’s ready to share in the world of art, fashion, and entertainment that she knew she needed to approach professionals because there seemed to be no starting point to all of the things she was doing.
Hydra’s social media is largely followed in not only hip cities like New York and L.A., but also the Philippines, which surprised her a bit.
“A lot of people on social media just want to be famous, you know? They’re not trying to learn anything or help anyone. There’s so many people just living in their own little self-absorbed digital daydream out there, just selling stuff and promoting themselves but I’m actually interested in my followers and saving the planet.