Meet Mo of Askan NYC

By: Anslem Joseph

We sat down with the boutique store owner of Askan NYC, Mo, to learn about Askan NYC’s roots and how the store came to be in FYID NYC’s recent interview. Located at 151 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side, Askan NYC sells streetwear fashion that celebrates and recognizes Brooklyn and Black culture. By shedding light on the injustices that are happening in America, Askan NYC helps educate their customers about people, events, and pop culture within black culture via the options of clothing sold. Throughout the store’s website, canvas designs of individuals of African heritage such as Rihanna, Miss Adu, Biggie Smalls, Janet Jackson, and Tupac can be found on their merchandise.

Askan NYC’s owner, Mo, and it’s designer, Mr. John Wright, believes that the store possesses a unique quality compared to others because they use unparalleled canvas designs when creating their clothing. With this, Askan always looks for the next thing, and going by what’s popular isn’t an option. When creating canvas designs, Mo says, “We pick very unique images…. It literally looks like a painting on an item on a jacket. I thought it was a really good idea but also from a business standpoint, it makes sense. We essentially offer canvases on jackets, but if you come in and you want a different size, we can literally take off the canvas and put it on the other jacket. We take our time to make sure you pick the right image and also the right icon.”

As for the future, Askan NYC hopes to work on their social media visibility so they can attract new customers. Follow Askan NYC at Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and their Website! Also, follow Find Your Identification NYC Instagram for  more stories like this!

Check out our Q&A with Askan NYC owner Mo:

Part 1: Getting to know Mo:

Who are you?

My name is Mo and I’m a fashion designer from Bed Stuy. While in school, I worked in retail and studied marketing, but I didn’t like the corporate world. I decided to leave marketing and work with independent designers to start Askan NYC which is a clothing store that celebrates Black culture.

Who or what has inspired you to become a designer and create Askan NYC?

We actually started out making high-end menswear items but then we were advised to make our clothing reflect the styles of the neighborhood. Being based in the Lower East Side, we were inspired by the local art scene. I met Mr. John Wright, who is a street artist, shortly after transitioning into streetwear and we decided to work together.

How have African heritage and Black culture influenced your life?

Being Black and growing up in Brooklyn, I was influenced by a lot of Black cultures. Growing up and seeing the different kinds of streetwear people wore influenced me to make the same kind of streetwear I saw growing up.

Part 2: Questions about Askan NYC:

How did Askan NYC begin? Is there a meaning behind the name Askan NYC?

Askan NYC started when I began to work with different independent designers to find something unique in the streetwear style. John Wright and I collaborated to make streetwear clothing which eventually became the start of Askan NYC. We wanted to make the store name [was] unique so we decided to come up with the name, Askan NYC, [which] means “to the people” in Senegalese.

How important are Brooklyn and African representation in Askan NYC clothing?

When making clothes I noticed that people like to represent Brooklyn more than they represent NYC. That’s why I found it strategic to make the clothing represent a Brooklyn look especially since the Brooklyn Bridge is a cool representation of Brooklyn. 

How do you want customers to feel when they wear Askan NYC clothes? 

I want customers to feel a sense of pride and empowerment when they wear my clothes. I want my customer to feel a sense of strength when putting on his/her clothes.

When hearing stories about Ahmed Aubrey, Christian Cooper, and George Floyd, how do these stories affect you? 

It does affect every black person. I've had conversations with people who are like “oh, this person is black from America [and] he's affected, but this person might be black from the island [and] they can only go home.” But this is the thing, this affects everyone. It doesn't matter where you're from if you're black, you're black, [and] the [police] don't care where you're from. One of the cases earlier I read was, Amadou Diallo. He was from Africa and he got shot for picking up his wallet. He was shot 41 times so, it doesn't matter, [if] you’re black [then] you're affected by the situation. And, I'm glad to see people standing up and people protesting and making sure that new laws are put in place to stop this. And, we will do our part and we discussed with Imani to do something to hopefully give back and further.

Is there anything you think Askan NYC and people of African heritage can do to help fight against the ongoing injustices?

I think just raise awareness. Shed the light on situations like everybody is doing [because] everybody's voice is important. Some of the things we discussed with Imani is once again, making something and giving back, maybe a portion to some foundations. We want to shed light on social injustices and make sure we're making people more aware of things as well as educating them by at least letting people know that enough is enough. We just want to continue doing what we've been doing and making more designs, being socially cautious, and just promoting. Black excellence, right?

There’s a lot of canvas designs of black public figures in Askan NYC clothing. Why did you decide to do that specific style of design in many of your clothes and what is the message behind it?

For the canvas design, John [Wright] is the one who, when I met him, had been doing for a while. It gives it a touch right where it looks like a painting on an item, on a jacket. I thought it was a really good idea, but also from a business standpoint, it makes sense. We have these canvases on jackets, but, if you come in and you want a different size, we can take off the canvas and put it on the other jacket. Also, I think out of everything you see online, we take our time to make sure we pick the right image and also the right icon that we put on there. [For] some of them, you look at them and you think of a certain emotion whether it's pride or [etc.].  If you look[ed] at the Tupac and Janet Jackson canvas and how she looks at Tupac in the picture is really intense. That picture [of] that moment was iconic and everybody remembers that. We don't want to overdo it where it becomes corny. I think when you look at Prince Akeem, for instance, I had never seen somebody with that on a painted jacket. I thought it was a super original picture. We make sure we pick images that are very unique. That's pretty much when we chose that one [in particular].

Part 3: The Future of Askan NYC:

Are there any designers/companies Askan NYC would like to collaborate with in the future?

I can't really think of anyone. A lot of times we work mainly with independent designers, so we don't really look at the mainstream [designers]. That's the cool thing about independent designers, you don't even know who they are. We look for something unique. That's different [and that's going to compliment what we've got going on. We definitely always hope to meet new people. We don't have anybody in mind, but anybody that has something really dope, especially minorities, [then], it'll be beautiful. We want to celebrate that attitude [and] what we got going on right now. 

What catches your eye when meeting these independent designers?

Something unique, something different. We go to trade shows. We've been doing it for a while so we see so many things, but if we see something that's unique that we've never seen before, we're super excited. “We're like, let's go! This is something that is very different!” Anything that's very unique, that's never seen before is what really catches our eye. We celebrate everybody's efforts and everything is not for us. Just like everything, not for everyone, so we might turn down something. But, that doesn't mean that it's not going to work in Harlem, but we know what we like. And it's more, we're looking for something unique that's going to complement what we have. That's just when we can go wild!

How important was it for Askan NYC to make masks during COVID-19 for their customers? 

At first, we didn't want to do it. I felt like once this happened, everybody was jumping on that and making a bunch of masks. And, what happened is we spent a lot of time online just looking at what people were wearing or trends and stuff like that. We realized that there are so many thousands [of] masks out there and there were only a few that were very unique. When we make something, again, we want to have a different angle with it and make something a little different. For our mask, we made a few weeks ago, we only made one. We made that one mask but we basically kept going with whatever we have online. So, we'll have a few masks in the store, but we're definitely not going to make a whole lot because I do notice that it's not selling as much and we're known for other things. We'll design a few but, we're not going to make a lot of face masks.

How has COVID-19 affected Askan NYC?

We are a brick and mortar store, [and], we've been closed for like three months and now curbside pick up started two or three days ago which I think is more of a department store thing. If you ask me or certain neighborhoods, I feel like maybe a footlocker or a neighborhood, they [may] have a lot of customers coming in. We're not that type of store, we are a boutique. We focus on online sales and thank God that has been helping out, but it's not what it used to be. We started slowly, [but] it'll be back up. We're here now, we've been working, but we can't wait until we actually open it up at that point. You kind of play catch up a little bit because there's been a lot of money that has been lost. 

What are some of Askan NYC’s goals that they would like to accomplish in the future?

First of all, it is definitely to do more wholesaling. I think people really appreciate what we have. I think there's a lot of stores nationwide who love to have stuff that we make. So, we're working on making more stores, working on our online presence to really rely more on that. That's what we learned from COVID-19 [that] you have to realize [that at] the end of the day, the same effort a lot of businesses put in the physical store, they put it online. They'll be as successful or make even more money. So, that's something we want to work on [with] the online presence and get more visibility like more blogs, more magazines. We want people to check us out. But, we definitely want to focus more on wholesale and the online, because after the COVID situation [and] after the protest, you realize that you're not in control. Things change so fast and the safest place is sometimes online.

 Are there any social media links or anywhere that Askan wants their customers to find out about their store beside the website?

Afterpay. It’s a website where you try to pay for something. Let's say something [is] a hundred dollars. It gives you an option to pay like $25 a week. Now, if you would have some of these stores set up for upfront when you check out and you have an option to pay in installments. We basically integrated our store with afterpay and afterpay is pretty big, You will have to [look on] afterpay, under the section, black-owned and we're listed on there. That's something we want to work on more. We got a little shout out [from] fashion bomb daily with a few pictures and they posted us. We got a little bit of shine off of that and they put us on their website, but that's about it. That's what we want to work on more. Get more visibility [and] have people be [more] aware of.

Do you have any last words for Askan’s customers?
To tell people [to] come check us out! [We’re] Black owned and pretty much promoting Black culture. We’ve got some really cool stuff here so, go support and check out the Website!