by Izham FazelyHUMBLE BEGINNINGS
The PopMalaya story originally started somewhere between the year of 2004 and 2005 but officially came into ‘’being’ in the year of 2006. During this period, I was still struggling to finish my degree (Advertising & Design) at Multimedia University, Cyberjaya while Zul was still coming to grips with the working world after graduating the previous year with a Business Management degree. Life back then was much more simpler but then I thought, ‘Hey, there’s got to be more to this life than just graduating, getting jobs and getting married!’ (not that it’s a bad thing). Perpetually bored out of our wits, Zul and I decided to toy around with the idea of setting up a clothing label. Sharing a common passion for rock n roll music, old school films, arts n design, fashion and the independent spirit – we started doing our research on both the local and international clothing label landscape. We were both massively inspired by brands such as X-Large, Supreme, Bathing Ape and Freshjive - during which there was a boom of ‘streetwear’ culture in the U.S.A and Japan. What attracted us to these brands was their brand integrity and simply good-looking designs. Locally, brands such as Radioactive, Crazee and Plastic spearheaded the streetwear phenomenon. But somehow, we felt that something was amiss… After much observation and deliberation, we realized that the local streetwear brands tend to ‘rip-off’ their western/foreign counterparts.
Granted the designs do look good, but it was lacking in identity and the notion of ‘I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it all’ tend to rise every time we look at their t-shirts. Realising that there was a design niche that we could capitalize on, we experimented with the idea of implementing local elements to instill a sense of heritage among t-shirt lovers. A t-shirt is, afterall, a statement that you wear. Coming from middle class, 100% Malay families – we gained inspiration from everyday objects that we see. From Jawi scriptures to kain batik and even the irrepressible kicap Tamin - we found that these visual elements have a strong sense of belonging, somewhat close to home. So I thought, ‘Hey why don’t we infuse our designs with these objects and give it a new twist!’ Heavily influenced by Warhol and his pop art legacy, the first few designs were made by using a stencil and spray paint (not for fabric but aerosol spray paint) on to a t-shirt. We managed to ruin a couple of t-shirts but ended up with four‘ decent’ looking ones and decided to let our friends wear it at gigs. The name ‘ PopMalaya’ itself was conjured up after watching M. Nasir’s ‘ Kembara Seniman Jalanan’. Without realizing it, Zul and I have subconsciously created a brand for our ‘ clothing label’ and soon we were dubbed as ‘ the dudes who put jawi writing on their tees’. From then on, it was agreed that Zul would handle the marketing side of things while yours truly would be chief designer. Jijie, our fellow junior and college mate was roped in as designer and soon PopMalaya became three.
Without having any prior experience of running any sort of business and having little knowledge surrounding the manufacturing of t-shirts, we set out to produce our first collection by outsourcing our designs to printers located at Central Market. Considering none of us had substantial amounts of cash, I got a job working in an ad agency (while still not graduating!) and Zul opted to take a personal loan from the bank. Looking back, I guess it was due to our own ignorance as we were totally clueless on how to gain funding for our new found enterprise. Nevertheless, we decided to stick to our guns and remained independent; for better or for worse. We soon found out that starting our own line of t-shirts wasn’t as easy as we imagined it to be. It proved to be a steep learning curve as we found out that dealing with printers was quite troublesome.
During that first few months alone, we switched from one printer to another, which totaled to about 3 printers. We were pretty naïve at that time as one printer cheated us by supplying t-shirts of crap quality and the result of the workmanship was downright sad. Out of the first 30 pieces that we produced, only half were worthy of being sold. The other half was a result of botched silk-screening and some of the t-shirts had tears on them! We just couldn’t sell something of low quality as it would just mean but the bigger question was; ‘’Were there anybody interested in purchasing them in the first place?’ Lesson learnt, we headed back to the drawing board and sought to research more about the quality of materials and the finer art of silk-screening. We were fortunate enough to meet Shap – the owner of Dolls Store who gave us a crash course on t-shirt material quality. ‘ Kain dari Siam ni lembut, sedap bila pakai. Kain dari Bandung pun boleh tahan juga…’ said Shap in one of our conversations. Later on, we even managed to source out a much more reliable printer and after recouping some of the money we had lost earlier; we decided to put out more designs. But this time around we had a marketing strategy in mind… Zul had this idea of getting Ipoh based, lo-fi band Freelove as brand ambassadors for PopMalaya and since they wanted to make a music video for their single ‘ Indie Rock Darling’ – it was only natural for us to become producers of this project. The plan was to instill a bit of product placement in the video and with Youtube being quite a phenomenon, we decided to have fun with it. We gathered all our close buddies from college namely; Fairuz Sulaiman a.k.a Blur to direct this indie project. As for me, I had to take one for the team and without thinking too much of it; I volunteered to be the ‘TeddyBear’ in the video.
As much as we had fun with the whole project, the same thing can’t be said about our personal lives. My career and studies began to suffer as an effect. I nearly dropped out because of one measly subject. Things at the workplace weren’t looking too good either as people started questioning my commitment. It’s hard trying to divide time between doing something you love and the things you do to survive. I had a hard time coping and as a result my relationship with my family and my colleagues was strained. Zul too was having a hard time dealing with finances as the bank was constantly hounding him… Alas, everything wasn’t all doom and gloom. After ironing things out with my folks, I decided to focus on finishing my degree. Which meant I had to quit my job. It took me sometime but I finally graduated at the end of 2006.
The PopMalaya family also grew during this period. Zul managed to bring in Ell and Keri, old college friends of ours to design clothes for the fairer sex. As a direct result, PopRina was born. Ell and Keri started developing designs infusing traditional materials like songket and batik with a modern cut. Women’s accessories were also made and soon we had a line of batik ‘ ‘ ‘ hankies’ that were selling like hotcakes. This proved to be a new phase in PopMalaya’s brand integrity and we were slowly turning heads everywhere we go. LEADING THE LINE Never to be the ones resting on our laurels for too long,
Zul and I started conceptualizing an idea for an event. At this time, our network of t-shirt designer friends have significantly grown and it’s high time that we showcase these talents in a unique and different light. The idea of having a gig and bazaar at the venue has become too saturated and we were thinking of how we can change this. After playing with the idea back and forth, we came up with the idea of doing a fashion-type runway show where designers can parade their labels/wares on everyday people as models. To add an edge to it, the models would walk down the runway as live music is being played! As far as we’re concerned, this concept has never been done before in KL so we were pretty excited about it. We scoured the whole of KL for a suitable venue and decided on Little Havana in Changkat Bukit Bintang to hold our show. It was to be called ‘ Power Jiwa : The Unglamourous Fashion & Roll Show’.
As organizers for the show, we took the liberty of selecting the designers and the bands. Promotions and marketing-wise, we sought the help of our media friends from the Star, Bernama, Juice and Klue magazine among others. This was the first major event that we organized and at the back of my head, I was worried that no one would show up. But all my doubts were cast aside when on the day itself the turnout was fantastic! Little Havana was packed to the brim and on every nook and cranny there was somebody selling t-shirts, shoes, stickers and knick-knacks. When it was time for the fashion show to begin, everybody rushed upstairs to have a glimpse of the designer labels, which was of course accompanied by rocking good music. At the end of the day, ‘ Power Jiwa’ was a success and we even managed to make some profit (wasn’t much, but it was alright). The important thing was everybody enjoyed themselves and I was pretty proud that we manage to pull it off.
After the success of ‘ Power Jiwa’, PopMalaya developed a reputation on organizing events and collaborations started pouring in. 2007 proved to be a good year for the local arts and design scene as fresh, new labels keep popping up. We somehow managed to inspire a ‘movement’ and it was nice to see that the local scene becoming lively and vibrant. On that year alone there was something going on almost every weekend. PopMalaya and Poprina also managed to gain some television airtime as most of our clothes were featured on shows such as ‘Kami-the series’ and‘8TV Quickie’. Yes, things are beginning to look brighter and we couldn’t be happier about it! IT’S ALL ABOUT COMMUNITY
With the emergence of so many labels from so many aspiring young designers, Zul and I have problems in keeping tabs with everyone of them. It only makes sense that we should unite them all on one front in order to promote and serve the masses better. With the indie market coming to a boom here in Malaysia, we were constantly thinking on how to get our t-shirts to people outside of Klang Valley. After discussing it with Ahda and Abi – owners of Defy and Bima brand respectively, we decided to go on tour starting from KL, Johor Bahru, Ipoh and Kuala Terengganu under the united front of ‘Angkatan Baju Malaya’.
Under ABM there were 20 labels that were interested in taking part and in order to generate hype for this tour a press conference was held at the Annexxe Gallery, Central Market. ABM even managed to get itself featured on ‘ Malaysia Hari Ini’ on TV3 and Zul had his 5 minutes of fame as he explained what the whole tour was all about. On terms of getting media attention and hype for the event; we really did our job. The only thing left to was to go on tour and start selling our wares. Everybody was really excited about it and there was a good vibe going on. But what was to happen, neither one of us could have predicted it… The first leg of the tour in KL was held at the MCPA Hall and out of the 500 people that were suppose to show up only 63 people arrived. It was definitely a sorry sight, but the show had to go on. After inviting bands from different parts of Malaysia and Singapore it was disheartening to see the massive hall empty save for a few people. Sales definitely didn’t pick up and considering this happened on the first leg of the tour, everyone started having doubts. We ended up spending money from our own pockets to pay for the venue and morale among the ABM crew was at an all time low. After conducting a post mortem, we found out that every other gig held in KL that day was shunned for some reason. People just didn’t want to come and that boggled our minds even more. The second part of the tour was in Ipoh and after a 2-hour bus ride it was a relief to find out that the indie faithful there were out to give their support. Sales were slightly better and everyone started to have a good time. The Ipoh kids definitely love their music and overall this part of the tour was slightly better. We recouped some of the money we lost earlier but still we were feeling the brunt, as we have to pay for the bus ride and venue. Out of all the states, Kuala Terengganu was the only one that managed rope in the crowds and all the labels present that day managed to make some profit. This is partly due to the fact that it was difficult to get t-shirts to the indie faithful there and they were clearly eager to get their hands on some. PopMalaya wasn’t present at this part of the tour as both Zul and I opted to stay at KL to participate in Urbanscapes; an event organized by Junk Magazine. Besides that, both of us were flat broke! The last leg of the tour in Johor Bahru also proved to be another disaster as not nearly as enough people came. Again, sales weren’t that encouraging and we ended up owning money to the venue owners. Budget was so tight that we couldn’t afford to rent a bus but instead we had to get bus tickets just like everybody else. It was really a funny sight as each one of had two or more bags with loads of t-shirts in it. Tired but refusing to be let down, we went back heads held high thinking; ‘Hey, at least we had fun in JB…’ After the hit n miss tour of ABM,
Zul and I decided to take a short break to recoup and compose ourselves. Besides, Zul was getting married so both of us decided to take a breather; hoping to come back stronger than ever. Fortunate enough for us, ladyluck was smiling. THE PRESENT AND THE WAY FORWARD It’s still a mystery to me, but I’m glad it happened. One day out of the blue, Zul rang me up and said, ‘TIME magazine nak interview!’ I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not…. until I saw the e-mail he forwarded to me. Journalist Lara Day wanted to do a piece of PopMalaya along with t-shirt makers Team Manila of Philippines and G.O.D of Hong Kong. It was going to be featured in the August 08 issue and it sure is a damn good sight to see PopMalaya being featured next to the image of the Beijing Olympics. This was definitely one of the proudest moments in my life…period! If that wasn’t enough, British Council selected PopMalaya to go on a Creative Catalyst Programme in Bandung, Indonesia. Everything was to be paid for and the highlight of the event was KICKFEST ’08.
KICK (Kreative Independent Clothing Kommunity) is arguably the largest clothing brand festival (or ‘distros’) in South East Asia and I was fortunate enough to be there with two good friends of mine. It was inspiring to meet other creative types from the UK, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, China, New Zealand, Thailand and Japan as we shared our thoughts in the cool air of Bandung. I also got the chance to meet with the owners of Cosmic distro; the third largest clothing company in Bandung and the boys showed us how they run their operations. To date, Cosmic has four boutiques situated in Bandung, Jakarta and Bali. The boys also taught me a lesson in humility, as they were so nice to us that I just didn’t know where to put my face. To Roby and the Cosmic crew, I just can’t say thank you enough. It was also during this trip that I met with Dash of Global Warisan and as they say, the rest is history. To end this story now would be a killjoy but I am confident that PopMalaya, along with PopRina will make great strides. Hopefully someday, Zul and I would be able to quit or fulltime jobs to focus on our company. But in the meantime, I’m just glad that we did it our way and let’s hope that we keep remaining true to our independence…
To be continued…
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