"If you look around downtown, you can see Apple and lululemon. They’re both big and successful companies, so there’s something there with fruit names,” joked Athena Wang, a UCSB student and the founder/designer of Watermelon Apparel, when I asked how she came up with the name for her brand. “Watermelons are also a fruit, and I’m very superstitious, so I hope there’s some truth there.”
Watermelon Apparel is Wang’s clothing brand, which features cute and comfortable clothes like oversized T-shirts and crewneck sweatshirts. Last spring, Wang was managing her own online shop when inspiration struck as her mind wandered during an accounting class. “We were talking about business,” she said, “and I just thought, ‘Well I have a business. It would be cool if I could do it in person.’”
Wang has a strong entrepreneurial spirit which she attributes to her father, who is the inspiration behind the name of the brand. Her father, who now runs his own technology incubator, grew up in rural China and worked as a watermelon salesman. His family was very poor and often had trouble finding enough food to eat. He would rise before the sun every day for years to sell watermelons at the market.