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Interview with Carline and Ria from Whiteboard Journal on Vimeo.
| The mass population of woman in Indonesia was invaded by the first launch of its Shawls, before becoming one the most sought out brands each season. Further expanding their line of comfortable basic-clothing made specifically from Cotton, naming it Cotton Ink. Whiteboard Journal sat down with the duo behind the label Cotton Ink, Carline Darjanto and Ria Sarwono to further understand the success behind their name.
W: Why is the brand called Cotton Ink? C: So back in November 2008, I was jobless and Ria was finishing her school, and we wanted to make a brand that is very common that everybody can accept, at the first time we made a T-shirt made of cotton, and since it had prints on it, we thought ok, let’s call it Cotton Ink, (Cotton and Ink). And right now, we have so many ranges of colors; so (the name) literally represent our products. R: So it was very spontaneous. W: What is both your background? R: I went to Paramadina University, basically I’m a graphic designer but I never wanted to work in advertising or anything related to that, after I graduated I went to London to take a short course in London College of Fashion. C: She took fashion business. C: I’m actually from a fashion design background. I graduated from Lasalle College of Fashion here (Jakarta); it’s a two-year program. Before that I didn’t know what to do so I took business school in Malaysia, called Taylors College, but then I went back because I really didn’t get it, I know business is cool but I really didn’t get it. So I went back. it’s better than doing something wrong and spending more than 3 years to do it and Lasalle College was opening the shortest enrollment so..here we are. W: What is both your role in Cotton Ink? What is your basis on making a decision? C: I’m more in charge towards the design role, I’m more like the creative director, branding itself, Ria is more into the accessory line, we are having more range of products, so she’s in charge in that but she’s also in charge of styling and more into merchandising and stocks and much more in an operational way but she also helps me in the creative process. It’s not like I’m the creative one and she’s the operational one, I’m also helping her if there are any problems/issues. About the decision-making we also make it together, we talk, we fight..cat fight. W: For the branding strategy, did you think about it from the start or was it a trial and error process? R: From the very beginning we didn’t make a big plan that we’re going to do it online or have a (physical) store. At the first time it really is spontaneous. We thought of it in a very simple way to sell our products. C: Maybe cost effective, because we don’t like making a huge company, so we started little by little..and at some point we thought either we become serious about this or we take another job. So the decision was it was going to be serious, what is our benchmark or our competitor? Because Ria also has some knowledge of the fashion business, and even though I was only in Taylors College for 6 months, its actually helping because I met so many people there and discuss about business and my brother has more knowledge than me in branding. Because I know that branding is the most important thing, The branding has to be very strong because in the end of the day, people do not look at the clothes anymore. It is spontaneous but we fixed it along the way. W: You started out by selling your trademark scarf/shawl on a blog medium, and your items sells out very fast by seldom restocking, was this a happy accident? Or part of a business strategy? C: It’s actually both, at the first time, Ria was working as a piano teacher, at that point, and I was working in another company, so that we didn’t have much time to do any planning, but we think that it is very, like I said, cost-effective, our strategy is not selling so many articles at some point, because people here can not accept so many articles, you throw it all at once, people have to learn about our brand, after the shawls came out, and we thought everyone was very happy about it. We thought that we should make it in many colors; people can select their own colors, and people started collecting it like crazy. At one point, I remember one person bought a dozen or two dozen. R: After that we made the new style, the fringe and the krey, and people went crazy about it. C: It actually is our experiment in immigrant, we were doing a photoshoot, we are thinking about making the shots more interesting and just like that, it was a experiment and we found it, and it boomed. And people thought, OK, I understand what your branding is all about. And the colors, sometimes we don’t make it anymore, because we don’t have the fabric anymore, its very expensive if you want to order fabric, from the raw (material) to the coloring, so I think you don’t want to bump into someone, R: wearing the same color, same style C: Different color is OK. |
W: In your own opinion, what makes Cotton Ink unique?
R: In my opinion, we sell basic stuff, Today, where can you find basics? Maybe in another brand but its more expensive, but we are affordable. C: In my opinion, I don’t know, I notice that local brands these days always want to do more and more, they want to show off what they got, me as a designer, its my idealism and I know people want to know what I’m capable off, but the direction of this brand is too make your everyday wardrobe. I didn’t even think about it, I just put this today. I didn’t think about it, I thought it’s comfortable and the color is good. People sometimes want simple things. W: This is a question many are curious about, pricing? What makes Cotton Ink so affordable? C: Online is giving us so many opportunity to arrange the pricing, so its not so high. As you know if you produce more, you always get less, actually you can produce this, and maybe other people want to mark up the price, but we are just doing good. Quantity is everything for me, from the business-wise, if you sell a lot you don’t have to worry about the pricing and profit. It will be there, you just have to make it widely, and if you do not want your products to be overproduced, you just produce it in different colors. W: Why go online (selling on a webstore, with no physical store)? R: Actually about the physical, we thought about it, but these days we are just focusing on our webstore. We want to be the first local brand whose doing this right, selling through webstore. C: People are a little bit crazy about online shopping, because it’s like giving yourself a gift. Maybe the feeling of giving yourself a gift is quite addictive. R: oh I remember. And furthermore, I don’t think we have the capability to have a physical store, a physical store, is very very difficult, you have to deal with people, you have to deal with stocks, money and everything. For me until I can make, in one week, two deliveries, or two new items/arrivals, I don’t want to do a physical store, it will kill you. Part of selling basics is if you go to the store and don’t see any new stuff, you would think “Ok so this is Cotton Ink..then?” you have to give them new arrivals each week if not it will be very hard. It’s different with maybe Biyan or Sebastian, it’s a very luxury item. W: You talk about the need to update your collection often if you had a physical store, how often do you update your collection on the webstore? C: We actually have a key point; having the online store have two new arrivals in a month is the minimum. You have to change the interface or the homepage in 10 days, the minimum. People usually come a week after they make their payment, they want to see something new, even though there is nothing new, it’s very important because the eyes wants to be pamper even if they don’t buy it. W: What are your views of the state of the local fashion industry you are in and the how do the local market response to this growth? R: I think we came in the right time when other local brands are growing and we are growing together, how we response to it, we can see it clearly if we go to Brightspot market, the local people are more appreciative of the local brand. C: Anyway for me the fashion industry is going well, the local one if you want to say, but its different for our customer the target market, for us it’s good. But for the lower market, if you say the wholesale is very tough, by Chinese. For our level is good, because we already know their behavior, how they respond to something, they now appreciate us more, kind of to the level of the international brands. One point I want to note, I don’t want to be special just because I’m a local brand, I have to compete with the other brands, like Topshop, Zara, its our real competitor, its not like because I’m local you have to choose me, you have to appreciate my product because you like it, not because of the hype of seeing it in fashion magazine , it will not last, you have to have a good thing and maintain it. But that’s the art and the fun of it People have more money now and spending is ok, and the industry and business in Indonesia is good. – Interview by: Leonard Theosabrata & Athina Ibrahim |
