Why do you have to be just one thing?
Why do you have to be just one thing..?
Alex Singhal and Miki Burnett started May Contain Traces in 2020. This fashion label is all about not fitting into a certain box, being different but also banding together and opening our minds to numerous groups and styles. Alex discloses how MCT came to be, the inspiration behind the brand, and how they continue to stand apart from the crowd.
Alex Singhal
It wasn’t until Miki, our very own design wizard, came back from that trip to Japan did I realise how amazing Japanese designs and clothing were. There was this certain feeling that each piece of clothing evoked that was ineffable. We started May Contain Traces around 5 months later, in the height of the 2020 lockdown. We’d been living together for that year: 6 months without covid and 6 months with. It was in the chaos of those first few months of the pandemic that May Contain Traces was born.
We knew we wanted to do something different, something that hadn’t been done before. We noticed lots of other brands doing very similar things to each other. We wanted to create a community of like-minded individuals who all saw and experienced the world in similar ways. We wanted our clothes to represent a sense of belonging. We don’t have customers; we have community. Everyone that follows us does it because they like what we’re doing and what we’re trying to build. Our aim is to build a community of creatives that want to create their own futures through whatever medium they choose.
It brought us to the idea of tribes and subcultures, and how people often stick to just one group, demographic, or style. The idea of a ‘tribe,’ is an idea that has been constantly reinterpreted over history. Take the mods and rockers. You either were a mod or rocker: You couldn’t be both. Your clothes were mod, your music was mod, and the people you hung out with were mods. Vice versa with punks. Then came along ravers, you could be a mod in the day and raver at night and this is where we started to see blends between different subcultures. Fast forward to the 2020’s and we live in a world of pick and mix culture. I could be wearing mod shoes, punk trousers, raver tops all whilst listening to y2k anthems. Do you see what I mean?
We wanted to use our brand; clothing and designs to try and build on the chaos of subcultures. We want our clothes to make you stand out but also stand together. Whilst our clothes do this in ways that are hard to describe, one way we channel our creative chaos upon the world is through how we promote our brand. In the days of everyone ordering from QR codes at pubs, we decided to create QR codes that linked to our Instagram and stick them all over pub tables. As you can imagine, this caused some chaos. We got lots of organic traction and decided to pursue more guerrilla and anti-norm strategies to help create a buzz around the brand.
From when we started to how we operate on a daily basis; it’s all about being different with what we do. From designs to marketing and everything in between. We try to be unique, challenge the mainstream and continue to embrace the chaos that fuels our creativity.
Responses to a Q&A done by Alex about the eclecticism of personal style.
Find May Contain Traces on Instagram @maycontaintrac3s