We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful May Mangkang. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with May below.
May, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
My work ethic definitely comes from my mother. My mother works harder than anyone I know, even to this day. I don’t remember spending much time with her while growing up and I know she never slept much. But I have a very clear memory of her taking care of everything and everybody. She took care of our family physically and financially as my father wasn’t around much. She took care of kids, cousins, grandparents from both side, and all of the other relatives too.
She is a full time nurse still at age of 66 in Japan.
Her motto is “work before complain. You won’t get anything without hard work. And you must take care your family even if you hate them.”
It’s a bit of a blunt statement, but she’s right. To me, my duty is always going to be to love and care for my family whether they are related to me by blood or not. I work hard because I want to be able to support those that I love as well as myself. I put in hard work because it feels good to be productive and see an end result. It keeps me motivated.
Lastly, my mother and I both think — “we would rather work because our life and problems will be better than if we just sat around doing nothing.” I work because I have to, but also because I want to. I want to make a difference in my life, my kids lives, my family’s my client’s lives…and I believe that the work ethic my mother has instilled in me, I will carry for the rest of my life.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Our brand name is Electric Sunshine and my husband and I design and make every single item we have in our shop ourselves. We don’t like to call ourselves “fashion designers.” Instead, we are a hybrid of an artist and a bakery since we make and sell our clothes fresh everyday. We don’t follow trends or use a big sweatshop/factory to manufacture our clothes. We do this so that we can avoid excess inventory and minimize waste (as we aim to be a sustainable brand). The goal of Electric Sunshine is to spread universal love that goes beyond gender, culture, religious and age boundaries. Our brand logo is 3 dots which stems from the constellation, Orion. Orion is the most visible constellation from Earth and stands as a reminder that if we keep pushing, we can be as bright and as visible as Orion.
All of our textiles and prints on our garments are designed to tell the story of universal experiences shared among many without the use of words. The themes of these experiences span existentialism, love, and life. We also have a mascot named “Pluto,” named after the dwarf planet. For years, scientists have called it a planet, then Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet. During all of this though, Pluto never changed. The planet has just been shining in the sky. So we decided to adopt Pluto as our mascot as we enjoyed the idea of never changing despite what people say about you. Pluto’s message is “don’t change the way you are. People might judge you wrong all the time. But remember, you are star born perfect and special. So keep on shining! “
More recently, our goal is to collaborate with many other artists and creatives to make our Electric Sunshine family bigger to spread our message. The world is suffering right now and we need to spread love and light. So moving forward, we will be working with various musicians to create collaborative events in-store! Additionally, I’m hoping more and more people of all ages enjoy our clothes and art. I don’t want prospective buyers to think that streetwear is only for young people. I’m Japanese and my husband is Thai. We draw on a lot of our experiences growing up in our respective countries to create the style of clothing you see in our store today. Our clothing and creations aren’t just a fleeting fashion trend or the latest fad, but an amalgamation of all of the life we have lived thus far. I’ll continue to improve and grow and find new inspiration as time goes on. My goal is to have our customers bring in our clothes 30 years later and tell me, “we still wear these clothes!” So far, we have some people still wearing shirts from 10 years ago. So all we can do is hope we make a lasting impression on everyone that walks into our store!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Quality: The most important quality to have in this industry is resilience. You just can’t give up no matter how hard it gets. There have been many hardships throughout our journey. One thing me and my husband always made sure is that we don’t give up. We take risks and we try our best. We are still in the middle of our journey. But looking back on the time, this journey that I didn’t give up on is building my confidence and helps me move forward with grace and optimism.
Skill: Learn from your mistakes and master them. I didn’t go to fashion school and I am self taught in everything I do. Of course my work is not perfect. But every time I make a mistake and get stuck, I don’t throw away the mistake. I break it down and redo it until I’m satisfied. And also it is important to take time to pay attention to the details.
Knowledge: Again, I didn’t go to fashion school, but for me it is more important to constantly observe your surroundings. It’s one of the best ways to learn in my opinion. I want our clothes to fit well on all genders and all body types. That’s why I adjust my shirts and pants for my customers on the spot in my shop — to fit nicely and to make them feel confident in our clothes. My advice is that there is no shortcut. Take your time to learn and understand that it won’t be perfect on the first try, but never give up.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
We would love to collaborate with any other small business in the US! That can range from restaurants, cafes, musicians, visual artists, etc! We collaborated with a couple of artists (i.e., Midi Neutron — give him a listen! He’s great!) signed to an indie record label based in NYC, Eryngii, for an in-store event and merch collaboration. We created a custom print that combined our mascot Pluto with the cover of the track they were releasing! We sold this print on t-shirts and hoodies! It was an incredible turnout and as a result, we made a lot of wonderful connections and will likely continue these types of in-store events. It’s been incredible to watch the different forms of art come together in one space and we’d love to continue with collaborations like these. For anyone reading — if you want to do a cool merch collaboration (i.e., uniforms or event merch) for your brand or company, let us know!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.electricsunshinenyc.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/electricsunshine.nyc/profilecard/?igsh=MWtvbGp4dXU4aHU0cQ==
Image Credits
Electric Sunshine
David Park
Dave J. Dragon
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
