SOFEA, LILI OR ARIANA?

"Siapa bilang gadis melayu tak menawan?" sang our local singer, Dato' Jamal Abdillah. Who said that our local names are not captivating? I am not talking about the local girls by the way, teehee! Okay getting back on track, we are currently living in an era where, almost, EVERYONE has at least one mobile phone or a smartphone and if you are a careless, clumsy, ungrateful, inattentive (and the list goes on, I could maybe write a whole dictionary for the synonyms) person like, ehem, this author right here a.k.a me, I don't think we could go through a day without dropping our phones. but Thank goodness for today's inventions, we have phone cases to save the day! 

Phone cases are not something odd anymore in today's world. I still remember back in 2010, when my sister had this one Union Jack casing on the back, guarding her legendary Blackberry Bold. That was like the first time, I have ever seen a phone casing. 

There are many well-known phone cases companies that have successfully captured the hearts of many people. For instance, CASETiFY and my personal favorites, Wildflower Cases. In this post, I will be introducing to some of you who may not have already known, the existence of phone casing with...batik motives! I mean, it's not a shocker since it is the whole point of this whole blog. But, who are Sofea, Lili, and Ariana? What do these girls have to do with anything with the phone cases?

Photo credit: https://twitter.com/hnicase/

Established in December 2017, by a young lad known as Hafiz Ibrahim, who was just 20 at that time, ALONE! H&I Case also offers a phone accessory called a GriPop, commonly known as a pop socket, in addition to their various designs of phone cases for both iPhone and Android models. 

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Q&A with Hafiz Ibrahim, the owner of H&I Case

Friday, 29/10/21, 3;17 p.m.

*I=Hafiz

Which of your batik product is praiseworthy and the most satisfactory?

The best-selling batik case: Sofea!

Sofea is our best-seller among Batik Collection because they have unique color combinations and we love our Batik and Songket collection because it brings out the traditional design into the modern world.

When do you start the business? 

I have been working on my online store by myself since December 2017! In fact, the H&I Store had to temporarily halt its operations twice since starting out. The first time was due to a lack of knowledge about the industry and capital. While I continued my business again in 2019, I took another break as I just wasn’t satisfied with the final product. But I didn’t give up. Fast forward to the present day and I have finally managed to run my business again.

Why batik out of everything? What is the inspiration behind it?

The inspiration behind starting the Batik and Songket phone case collection was when I noticed a lack of phone case designs inspired by the traditional fabric. Sticking to the theme, I give traditional names to each of his products. 

Does the idea relate to you in any way? If so, what kind?

Personally, I don't think our business is related to batik but we want to make batik a universal design that you can use in making any products. Like us, we produced Batik phone cases and probably we can make other products as well using Batik.

Source: World of Buzz (WOB)

What is your biggest achievement so far related to batik?

One of our tweets went viral on Twitter and World of Buzz featured H&I Store on their web page.

What are some of the hurdles you've faced in the batik industry?

We (H&I Case) don’t face any challenges related to batik but we had a problem with our Songket design because China started to copy our design and produced it as their own products.

Where did you see H&I Case in 10 years with the Batik collection?

 I hope that H&I Store will be a well known brand for phone accessories like Casetify and Loucase and we as a team will keep evolving Batik design by following the modern trends.

What is your hope for this local gem as an individual, for the public and the country?

We hope that younger generations will not forget about Batik because this is our local treasure and that’s the reason why we produced the Batik phone case so that people will still remember batik as one of our traditional treasuries.

Though life is sometimes like a rollercoaster that goes up and down, the story behind the success of H&I Case really open my eyes as a interviewer and I hope it does for you guys reader, too! If any of you guys are interested in shopping and supporting our local entrepreneur, head over to hni.case (Instagram) or their website on https://hnistore.com.my/wp/ as they offer seven series of casings which are Rubik, Songket, Batik, Ice Cream, Jellybean, Backyard and Hexagon collection.