Save The Earth, Change your Shoes, Wear PIJAKBUMI
Save the earth, change your shoes, wear PIJAKBUMI
Wearing a high-end brand shoes make you look cool but wearing shoes that can bring positive impact to environment make you a hero. PIJAKBUMI is one of the local brands product from Bandung. They produce shoes with eco-friendly items. PIJAKBUMI was established in April 2016 by Rowland Asfales as the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
According to PIJAKBUMI’s official website, around 2014, Rowland lost his sneakers. At that time, he was just an undergraduate student. He didn’t have a lot of money to buy new pairs yet decided to design his own shoes. After designing his own shoes, he met some shoe craftsmen who lived in a very inappropriate dwelling. Looking to his condition, Asfales decided to help him by promoting the beauty of local high craftsmanship with proper attention and better impacts on workers and environment. And around April 2016, he suceeded to establish his own brand called PIJAKBUMI.
One of the thing that make PIJAKBUMI famous is his eco-friendly campaign. Asfales wants to tell the audience about how important it is to be aware with our earth, and we still can look fabulous and fashionable with shoes from eco-friendly items. Most PIJAKBUMI products are made from plant extract. They use Kenaf as a plant extract for PIJAKBUMI products. Asfales says Kenaf produces eight times more oxygen than any other plant.
PIJAKBUMI also has a very high quality designs for each products. From my very honest perspective, I guess Asfales got his inspiration from Japanesse style because as we can see, he uses some Japanesse language as his shoes’ names. First, Sakka. Sakka in Japanesse means artist. Second, Kora. Kora in Japanesse means children. These words are pretty related with Asfales’ goals when he decided to create PIJAKBUMI. Sakka means artist, and Asfales wants to promote local shoe craftsmanship, so they will get more recognition toward their artwork. And Kora means children in which if we relate this to PIJAKBUMI shoes design, most Kora’s collections use a neutral color with the same design pattern, and it reminds us with children especially in Japan because most of them love minimalist look.
In a nutshell, we should be proud of PIJAKBUMI, because from his movement and concern toward a better earth, they can bring Indonesia to the international fashion scale, and PIJAKBUMI always use these three values People, Planet, Profit.
