One of our highlights of going to Tempatan Fest is the Mind Sharing Sessions, where by selected individuals from the local clothing scene will give talks, advice and just plain sharing of ideas between themselves and the people who attend the sessions. We have always enjoyed ourselves at each session and we always try our best to share a summary of what has been said at this sessions with you.

This time round for the Mind Sharing Session at Tempatan Fest 5.0, led by Seir Rashid, the organizer of Tempatan Fest, who got Afiq “Amber” Iskandar of Tarik Jeans and Nusantara Denims to share about his thoughts on how to grow a brand in our local clothing industry. Check it!

Direction:-

Find a direction that you like. A concept, a theme or a philosophy that is very close to your heart, and use it as a direction for your brand. When you start a brand based on your philosophy that is personal, rarely will you see your brand’s direction clashing with other brands. Also with that philosophy, you can find a brand name from there. The designs produced by your brand is a manifestation of that philosophy itself. Many times we see brands start copying because they lack a genuine philosophy behind the brand.

Designing:-

Don’t be sloppy with your designs. If you wanna start a brand but you have no designing background, go and learn the fundamentals and principle of designing before you start designing. Or if you really have no talent in designing, then work together with a designer to do the designs. Many a times, a lot of problems arises because we have that “ala cincai la” kinda attitude and just go with anything. Be very detailed in everything you do. Even if the design is just fonts.

 Image & Branding:-

Image is very important too. Image is how the customer perceives the brand. So everything the you put out for the public to see, is actually something which represents the brand. It’s how you create an image for your customers to see. Simple things like an Instagram account shouldn’t be taken lightly. Don’t post up lousy / low quality pictures on the account. For Nusantara Denims & Tarik Jeans Instagram account we rarely post up pictures taken from the phone. Mostly it is pics taken from a DSLR. I’m not saying that it is wrong to post up pics taken from a phone, but that is the direction that we have decided to take. And as for branding, only one word comes to mind, ORIGINALITY. Also don’t fall into hype. Don’t follow the bandwagon. Hype is bullshit.

Social Media:-

Everyone should have social media these days. It’s a free avenue, so just use whatever platform that is available. “Apa lubang saja available, you just attack.” Also in social media, there should be a good balance between sharing and selling. Sharing of information between you and your audience that is engaging, that would help build a good engagement level with you and customers, and once that is achieved, it’s easier to sell. 

*At this point, there were some questions thrown at Amber from the floor

Why did you open up Nusantara Denims instead of opening a Tarik Jeans store?

Nusantara Denims was actually an experiment. I wanted to create a denim culture in Malaysia. There are many different denim cultures around the world, but I wanted to create OUR OWN MALAYSIAN denim culture. With our own distinct look and feel. Not the “Mat Salleh” looking type of denim culture, because they are both very different. And we also felt that the South East Asian region had a very similar style and feel to our culture, and that we had many things that are similar with our SEA neighbors. And that is why I thought of the name Nusantara Denims to signify a store that represents this region, and also to promote SEA brands here, and likewise for Malaysian brands to around to region.

It would have been a bit difficult for us to cultivate that culture if it was a Tarik Jeans store instead, because a “Tarik Jeans” store would not seem like it represented a SEA culture.

You play in Oh Chentaku and also own Tarik Jeans, so did Tarik Jeans help the band to grow? or was it Oh Chentaku (OCK) that helped the brand to grow?

BOTH. You need both to grow. There are times when a brand helps a celebrity/band to grow and sometimes its the other way around. You need to find out what is the impact points in your target market, and work it out according to that.