Today we’d like to introduce you to Cass Munny.
Cass, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I grew up here in DFW, and being immersed in the culture is an understatement. My father founded N-Fini-T Productions as a hip hop music producer in the late 80’s through the 90’s. My youth was spent in sound checks throughout Deep Ellum and being a kid in a recording studio full of adults. There was always this rhythm around me. We painted, drew, made music, acted, and basically were brought up to be creative individuals. My summers were full of the DMA and Fair Park. It was a blend of art, music, and fashion, with a little bit of street life mixed in. As one of the earliest bi-racial blends of Asian and African American people in the south, I was surrounded with many influences of pop culture on this side of the world and the other side of the ocean. I mean I grew up on anime when it was literally an imported thing and you couldn’t just go look it up on the internet. We had to find international shipping plugs to get stuff like that. This was definitely an influence on me and set the framework of things to come.
Being an artsy person, naturally that is what I set out to do. I remember saying I wanted to make shirts, and a professor shamed me saying I could do so much more than “shirts”. I started out as a fashion design student at Wade College, and went through the program and at the very last semester decided I wanted to be a graphic designer and switched majors. I had my son, Jhett, during this time and he was born at 23 weeks gestation. I would go to class, visit the NICU, and stay up all night working on my portfolio. I think at that point was the first time I realized what it meant to be a “Hustle Bunny”. After grinding it out literally for months, I walked away with the best portfolio award for my graduating class and I had only been taught actual “design” for about 3-6 months. This was in part due to Danny Rix who mentors me event to this day. I began to open up to the critiques of others who actually saw my vision and could help me refine that taste that I knew I had. I think that is when I knew it was a natural talent for me. I picked it up and ran with it and fell in love with typography and literally applied the philosophy of form follows function to my daily life. I started freelancing and working with luxury lifestyle brands and services and built this branding empire helping people start their businesses. It was very fulfilling to me, but in the end life is not just about profits. I began to think about what was next and it was in front of me the entire time.
I have always known how to draw. One of the things that led me to fashion design was fashion illustration. I love to illustrate and I really stood out for it. I learned how to use vector design programs and that changed the game for me. Once I mastered the pen tool, I was able to create anything and refine those sketches I cranked out. This paired with my love of street culture, video games, animation, music, and fashion would culminate into some pretty epic illustrations I would do just for fun. People would ask me to put my designs on shirts or to use them as tattoos and eventually it just clicked. I want to put it on a shirt, so I did. I would buy from these street wear brands and cop these drops and they never had things for women. They may have now and then, but nothing really tailored for females. I wanted to change that. I started illustrating empowering visuals about women and their quest to get the almighty dollar. The people loved it. I started Hustle Bunny as a way to brand myself as a designer, hopping from one job to the next. The thing is, that is how a lot of women are out here getting to it these days. My brand was born, the hustle was already there.
Has it been a smooth road?
The road has been pretty tight actually. It literally took off overnight. I never thought I would be able to reach so many people in such a short amount of time. The crazy part is that even with the power of social media, my brand sells the old fashion way. I will wear something and someone will ask where I got it and I tell them how to buy it. I get people overseas buying from me and I have no clue as to how they found me. I am just filling orders and using old-fashioned leg work. I feel like a rapper selling mix tapes out of my trunk because I was meeting people at gas stations to drop off orders. I just released my second drop and now people are seeing my first drop and want those designs again. I have to re-trace my steps a lot and follow the trends which can be exhausting.
I would say the hardest part is realizing that I have not put in the dues yet and even though I hold myself to this high standard I have not learned enough yet. We have released two drops and we have not reached a year in business yet. There will be a third release for our one year anniversary. It is a constant growing thing! I am learning time management and brand management. How to keep content and how to manage stock and demand. I will say I have been co-building with so many creatives that offer something amazing to my brand and learning how we all can sync our powers up and make something awesome has been really breathtaking. I think I am experiencing growing pains, and sometimes that can cost you money and time like learning new printing techniques and trying new vendors to get bigger profits. It can all be really overwhelming learning to be a business person when I thought it was just going to be illustrating and putting looks together. I am also super shy and people expect me to be the face of my business and that was not something I was expecting to do. It is kind of a struggle if you want to call it that.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Hustle Bunny story. Tell us more about the business.
HU$TLE BUNNY. We are a street wear brand mainly dedicated to women. We recently reached out to include men, but that is up in the air at this point. We specialize in vivid illustrations, but our medium is clothing. I think that we capture the hustler mindset, the drive that people feel when they are out here on the mission to greatness. Statements are made when you wear our clothing and people notice. You tend to be a trendsetter when you change the world and we provide the garments for those who are brave enough to set out to do that. Our company is diverse and inclusive we collaborate with every one with a by any means necessary mentality. I think I am most proud of the fact that I let this sit on a shelf in my mind for many years and when the time was right it took off much to my surprise. People are receptive to it. We are different because we cater to the pop culture aspect of fashion, but also to the street culture as well. We took Barbie and turned her into a trapper, like it is really for the culture in all honesty and not everyone is going to understand that. The thing is we do not expect everyone to get it. The ones that do ride for us and that is all that matters. Our version of brand loyalty is different I think because the ones that know…know.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The clothing industry will forever be a major hitter, but I think with the influx of technology and do-it-yourself mindset we will see a lot of brands take off in the sense of individuality. Think of the 3D printers and vinyl cutters people have access to now, and the things people are creating with them. Some of that technology did not exist and until recently or only existed in industrial settings. You can do it all from home now. 5-10 years ago you had to jump through hoops to get things screen printed. We live in a generation of YouTube graduates and I think they will change the industry in the sense of making clothing a more personalized thing in the sense of style and creation. We see the runway and view it as walking art, but I think with the readily available access via social media and technology we will start seeing more of that in the streets and it will be revolutionary. Imagine when people first started getting sewing machines in their homes, but like on a space age level.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hustlebunny.co/
- Phone: 6829995739
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @cassmunny @hustlebunnydesignco
Image Credit:
©theurbanjungle ©misshannanguyen
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