The slogan is “Always santai!”

About Marapulai

Marapulai is a clothing brand founded 2011 in Hamburg, Germany. Marapulai clothing is beginning as a small family company. The designer and owner is Muhammad Ilham Nirwan, supported by his wife Saskia. Marapulai is the first clothing brand of the Company Marapulai Clothing and combines ethnic motives of the Indonesian culture with casual style. The design concept continues with the Indonesian map on the sole and the ethnic logo on the back of the shoes.

And the slogan ´Always santai!`, which means ´always relaxed!`, is typical for Indonesian people and an attitude towards life. Marapulai products are for stylish and extroverted people and set fashion trends.

All products are made with carefulness and very good quality. We look for very good workmanship of the product and very good material. The idea Marapulai is born in Germany and the products are made in Indonesia. The planned products are handmade shoes from real leather, especially sneakers, and later clothes and bags. The first we have almost finished now are shoes.

Meaning of Marapulai

"Marapulai" is a word of the language from the culture of the Minangkabau ethnic group of West-Sumatra in Indonesia. In the past it was the word for ceremonial clothing of kings and chiefs. Later it changed to the meaning of sublime clothing for traditional ceremonies, like official big events for people from different regions of Sumatra. Nowadays, the concept has gained in usage as a word for the wedding outfit of the groom. We want to combine abstractly all the meanings in Marapulai, because it contains the ethnic side of culture, the quality of clothes and the young side of modernity.

About the owner and designer of Marapulai

Muhammad Ilham Nirwan

Since his childhood in Bukittinggi (island Sumatra) in Indonesia, his life was connected to art and creativity, like making his toys out of bamboo and wood. So he started to make his dream come true. While his study of Product Design (B.A.) at Institut Teknologi Bandung in Indonesia he successfully created the Shirt brand “Padeh”. But he decided to move further and went to the foreign country Germany for studying Digital Media (M.Sc.) at University Bremerhaven.

Marapulai – our idea and our target

We, as beginning entrepreneurs, want to support other start-ups and company enlargements. That´s why we didn´t want to produce in a big fabric. Therefore, our partners in Indonesia are business start-ups with a small business, like a home industry. Some are not bigger than two by three meters, but even so the quality is excellent and they work very well. So our target is also the social aspect of being an entrepreneur and the responsibility. Our target is that the shoe producer, the seller and the user is happy.

We make sure to comply with the guidelines of the social responsibility concept for companies in our manufacturing process. This means compliance with social standards in low-wage countries, paying fair and living wages, no child labor and sustainable production. And we agree with campaigns like "Clean Clothes". Of course we think on the environment, too. That is why the shoe boxes are made of cardboard.

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