“Because Malaysians like to dress like someone else. This example may be a bit offensive but a lot of women like to dress like Vivy Yusof or any other celebrity.
They like to dress like someone. But the thing is, the people they want to dress like doesn’t share the same physique, skin tone, height, etc. Unless you have a physique like a celebrity, you can dress like them but most of us don’t look like a celebrity. That is a fact we need to realise.
And instead of looking like a celebrity, dress according to what is best to your physique or personality. For me is not about the expensive things but the variety.
My passion is not in Fashion per se. My passion is in creativity. I think Malaysians don’t have the same level of creativity like Indonesians.
When I say Indonesians, I don’t mean all Indonesians but maybe the creative side. That’s why I believe in terms of the film industry, Indonesians are way ahead of us. Not in cinema but the films. I think Malaysians are not creative. Not everyone.
There are creative people but we like to copy. I think the issue with Malaysians is that one – we like to copy. Two – we like to do the trendy things. The problem with copying and doing the trendy things doesn’t mean that it fits you.
The link or the linkage that we are trying to create with Ombré is the link between your clothes and you. Ombré is a fashion stylist software. The software aims to give clothing or fashion suggestion to our users – to tell them what to wear based on their physique.
That’s why our tagline is: Dress Like Yourself. For us, clothes are the extensions of ourselves. So when it is the extension of ourselves, you can’t just wear something based on some other people.
For example, if I don’t look like David Beckham, I shouldn’t wear like David Beckham even though David Beckham is my style icon. What I do is, I follow his style but I change the colour.
For one thing our skin tone is different. David Beckham has a cool skin tone whereas I have a warm skin tone. Our bodies are also different.
The point is there should be a linkage between the wearer and the clothes. I think Malaysians don’t care about this. That’s why if there is a trend, for example, the varsity jacket trend. I get the trend but you shouldn’t wear that outdoors in the afternoon because you’re in Malaysia.
So always remember that there is linkage between ourselves and our clothes. I think Malaysians need to remember that. But if it is hard for them, just use Ombré.
I think the philosophy behind starting Ombré is that: we believe that fashion, before this, is seen as exclusive. If you’re rich or if you have a certain physique, then you can be fashionable. We want to tell people that fashion is not exclusive. Anyone can be fashionable regardless of your body shape and regardless of your income.
But I think what the problem that the majority of people have before this is that how can they be fashionable without hiring fashion stylists which cost around RM500 or USD500 per day. Unless they are very well knowledgeable in fashion, it is hard for them to be fashionable. But we aim to solve that.
Our software is not catered to the fashionable – it’s catered to the fashion conscious or fashionably clueless crowd, which is the majority.
We needed to do a scalable business and we decided with several ideas. But we see that fashion is the way to go because no one is doing that.
We are the world’s first fashion styling software that is patented. Our future plans is to expand to other countries. Right now, about 20{eb97150a49149dc6c9e8165e90f1c9129bb6172e02a598b4264a1fc329d7d5bc} of our users are Americans even though we don’t market to America.
We are of course thankful of Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) because of the programme. We went to Silicon Valley. It was only for 3 weeks, and I learned more in those 3 weeks than learning 6 months in Malaysia. So we took that opportunity to continue fundraising and finally found investors.
I think the number 1 advice took dearly after we came back from Malaysia was when we met a CEO of a start-up named Kenny Hock.
He taught me that: don’t tell me the problem, don’t give me an excuse. Find a way to get what it is that you need and want.
When visiting Facebook’s HQ, I noticed that there wasn’t any Facebook branding at all except for the light logo at the front.
Previously, this was Sun Microsystems’ HQ and their branding was still there in Facebook’s current HQ! We asked the tour guide why is Sun Microsystems’ still here and they said, “Mark (Zuckerberg) wanted to remind us that Sun Microsystems’ used to be an icon in Silicon Valley – but they died. So don’t be complacent because you can die.”
This was a ‘wow’ moment for me because it is the opposite here (in Malaysia). The culture is deep branding and putting the logo everywhere. I’m not saying that it is wrong, I’m saying that this is the other part of how people decorate their office.
The other one is there is a lot of word “hack” in Facebook issue. Even their address is 1 Hackaway I think? Why hack? They said, “our culture is hacking.
Although the word “hack” has a bad connotation like computer hacking. It doesn’t mean that.
“Hack” is more like you want something but you can’t do it in conventional means so you need to hack it out.” “the best definition of an entrepreneur is those who can create something out of something he doesn’t have”
And since I was in Standard 2 I had this urge of doing something and I love my work when it is appreciated.
For example in Standard 2, I used to draw Digimon on a piece of paper and photocopied it and sold it for RM0.20.
It wasn’t the matter of getting RM0.20. It was a matter of validation.
It was the matter that people were willing to pay RM0.20 for your work. It means that people are appreciative of your work. Again, it’s not that I want to be rich at the time.
It’s more of doing something that people want. I think I really like to create something that people don’t know that they want it. So I think that is my life philosophy.
My one thing is disrupting. When I say disrupting is not necessarily disruption – it is disrupting people, disrupting things. That is my one thing. Meaning if someone is doing something, when I come in, I want to do something different. I would disrupt that process.
Even when I am old, I would still want to disrupt things. That is my one thing. And Ombré, is my one thing.
Photostory by Mushamir Mustafa
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(This post was first published on August 12th 2018)
