Who. What. Woke| Female Collective by Candace Reels

Who. What. Woke is a mini-series I created on my blog to shine a light on creators who use their artistic talents to spread awareness on social issues in the world.

Meet Candace Reels. A 26 years old Los Angeles native and the founder of Female Collective. She graduated college in 2010 with a BA in Business Marketing and has a huge interest in intersectional feminism, fashion, food, Aziz Ansari, and puppies. Some things she do without are misogyny and ignorance.

How did you come up with the name, The Female Collective?

The name Female Collective came about when I was just playing around with ideas of names that would represent the message I wanted my company to represent. As we all know collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Female Collective’s mission is to build a community where us, women promote female empowerment and girl power. A community where we celebrate, empower, uplift, and support each other.

A little background on how and why you started The Female Collective.

I started Female Collective because I was seeing so a lot of girls hating on other girls online and it bothered me so much. We shouldn’t be going against each other, we’re so much better than that. So one day I decided to just start an Instagram account that would celebrate, uplift, empower, and support women.

Your passion is feminism. What does feminism mean to you?

Feminism to me means the social, political, economic equality of the sexes. Feminism includes all genders, races, and sexualities.

Why is it important that you spread feminism?

I think it’s important to spread feminism because I believe in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. I want young girls to love who they are and know that they can achieve anything they set their mind to, because that’s how I was brought up. Feminism to me is a great thing that we should all promote not just for young girls, but for young boys too. There is nothing wrong with believing in equality.

What's the best part of owning a brand? The most stressful?

The best part of owning your own brand is you create your own schedule, you play by your own rules, and there is always something exciting going on.

The most stressful part is that it’s a rollercoaster of emotions. You have these amazing days where all of these awesome things are going on and then you have days where nothing is going your way. But life’s all about the journey and I’m just here for the ride.

There are other brands targeted towards feminism already out there. How is yours different?

I love all the brands out there that are about feminism, I feel like you can never have enough people promoting female empowerment. I guess mine is a little different because I have a very sarcastic, humorous side to me that I like to share within my brand Female Collective.

Out of everything you could have created, why apparel?

I have always had a passion for fashion; despite how corny that sounds it’s true. I’m a quite shy person who has always expressed myself through my clothing. I’m able to express my feelings about society through the graphic tee I make and that’s why I choose apparel. I would absolutely love to eventually expand into more products this year, but as of now I’ll stick with graphic tees. I love them!