Words By: Keila Nakasaka

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.

Photo By: Carl Vanderschuit

Electronic Dance Magazine often covers music artists. Mark Edwards isn’t a music artist. But one could argue that he is, nevertheless, an artist. In a broad sense of the term, each one of us is an artist. We all dream. We all create. For Edwards, it was starting his Electronic Dance Music (EDM) brand with no formal education or experience. His story is inspirational. Many of us want to be somewhere different in life, but we feel that we simply don’t know how to get there.

Edwards wanted to start his own clothing brand since the age of 16. But like most kids that age, he didn’t know where to start. He found that ideas were easy to create, but that execution was an entirely different animal.

Standing 6’ with sea green eyes, Edwards is bright and creative. He’s also pragmatic. He didn’t want to go to college just for the sake of going; and the thought of graduating with the pressure of student loans didn’t appeal to him. He opted out of higher education and went to work in sales. It was a menial job, but then again, it wasn’t as though his circumstances were brimming with options. The daily grind of the job for the years to come was mind numbing. He felt dejected most of the time. There was such a chasm between where he was and where he wanted to be. But after 6 long years of facing an uncertain, and often dismal, future, he made a decision to take action.

He didn’t know all the steps to his destination. He just knew of one-to find a product that resonates with him.

He burned through a number of ideas before he decided on the two-toned snap-back led hats as an introduction for his clothing line. It was cool. It was timely. He didn’t want to compete with the entire apparel industry. It was too vast with new brands pumping out by the minute. He wanted to target a smaller audience. After months of due diligence, he learned the EDM market was the most receptive to his items. It was at the International Gloving Competition at the Pomona Fairplex on June 23,2012 that Edwards discovered his niche market.

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