We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ray Love Jr a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ray, we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?
I think my generosity mainly comes from my up bringing. I was blessed & fortunate enough to be raised by both of my parents while growing up. I can recall many times when they both displayed acts of kindness and generosity towards others. Not only did I witness it, they always tried to instill the importance of being kind to others.
I also grew up in church and of course there are many bible verses where God speaks on being generous or kind, but it was always one that my pastor would say often that stuck with me and that verse says, “Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put in your hands. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you”. Basically this message is telling you if your generous to others you can always expect for it to come back to you the same way. I believe that this is true only if your acting from the kindness of your heart and not just doing it in hopes to receive something back in the future.
I also always loved the feeling I get when making others happy. You never know what others are going through and sometimes the smallest acts of kindness can go along way and make someone happy. Because I know this I plan to always create new ways to show my acts of kindness as I continue to grow. In the summer of 2023 I was able to complete my first ever book bag and school supplies giveaway, I gave away 200 of my brand “ApeMode” book bags and they were filled with supplies. Although 200 may not be many it was still a huge accomplishment for me especially since all expenses were paid by me, with no outside funding help at all. I plan to continue to host the ApeMode book bag & school supplies giveaway every year and hope it continues to grow. Giving back to my community & making people happy is something I always love to do so I will never stop and I hope to one day impact the entire world.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am the owner of ApeModeApparel, which is a streetwear brand that I started in 2019. Clothing brands are very popular right now, EVERYONE is trying to start one. I don’t think it is a problem but I do believe not everyone that is starting one is doing it for the right reasons. ApeMode was not my first brand, I attempted to start my first brand when I was about 11 years old. That brand did not go far for me once I realized it would not work for many reasons. That was okay for me though because I always had an attitude of never giving up and its always okay to try again. Having a brand was one of my passions so after I graduated high school & attempted college for a year I knew the path that I was currently on was not the path I wanted to go towards. I decided to start up another brand, I recognized my mistakes from when I was 11 and understood I needed to research my field more before trying to jump right into something. Google and YouTube were my best friend! After I felt like I knew enough I got started with ordering 25 blank shirts and took them to my local print shop. After they completed my shirts it felt so good to see my vision come to life. I then began to start promoting my brand on all my social media platforms and told all my friends and family. My first 2 years were slow but that didn’t discourage me. I set aside money from every paycheck to have money to put into my brand. I came up with new designs and ideas every month. My brand finally started to get noticed in my city, my hard work and consistency was paying off. I figured out a method that was working for me, all I had to do was keep putting out fresh designs that the consumer would love and the brand continued to grow. Now in my 4th year ApeMode is known very well in the city of Milwaukee. I am now trying to use this same method and also create new methods to reach more people across the world. My goal for 2024 is to network in different cities to get ApeMode in front of the right faces. In late summer of 2023 I launched ApeMode’s first sneaker! It was a big accomplishment for me especially since it is not easy at all to produce shoes. Most small brands you see normally use pre-made molds that they didn’t create themselves and it’s nothing wrong with that because it saves ALOT of money. I chose to not go that route because I wanted to stand out and have something I can truly call mine! The name of my shoe is called “ApeMode JungleRunners” they retail for $180 and are available online, www.shopapemodeapparel.com with free shipping.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
On my journey I believe the three qualities that helped my journey is my resilience, self-discipline, and always being open to learn new things.
Throughout my life I have had many setbacks, one of them being failing at starting my brand when I was 11 like we talked about before. My ability to not let things like that affect me and instead use that as a sort of motivation to stay focused and to continue to grow has helped me a lot on my journey. I think everyone should understand that things happen and won’t always be perfect, but that is just apart of your journey, we should look at it as a learning experience that will help us succeed in life. Self discipline is very important to me, it’s something I believe every needs to be strong at. In life we have many decisions we have to make and sometimes you can only pick one. When you’re trying to make it to the top you have to have the discipline to make the right choices that will benefit you in the long run. Throughout my journey I have done this and I continue to discipline myself to make sacrifices that will help me grow and get to where I want to be in life.
Finally, my ability to always being open to learning new things is very important. The world is always changing and evolving, knowing that, I want to always stay up to date with the new trends & information that is released into the world. I think this is important for anyone who is in the business field. Being able to constantly learn and evolve keeps you ahead of the game and helps you stay relevant, change can be good!
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?
I definitely want to collaborate with brands in the future. I believe the stage I am in right now is me focusing on just ApeMode growth & reaching more people, while also continuing to develop ApeMode into what I know it can be. I believe in not rushing the process and focusing on building the best brand possible. While doing this I believe there will be many opportunities presented to me for collaborations. But I will say that Virgil Abloh, is someone one I studied and always hoped I could have worked with, although he has passed it is still a dream to have some form of collaboration with OffWhite. Kanye West and Mike Amiri are also two others I hope I can one day work with, I love both of their work. If they somehow come across this article I’d love to hear back from them, feel free to reach me via instagram @apemode.apparel.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.shopapemodeapparel.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/apemode.apparel/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ApeModeApparelMKE/
Image Credits
@aleahstoriesmedia @_angelshotthese @shotbybasi @onlyxstephlu @hbg27_
