APOM! has the Best Punchline for Christmas this Year

By Ammar Haziq  •  23 Nov 2018 in Design

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Malaysian clothing brand A Piece Of Malaysia or APOM! have always been known for their famous Malaysian slangs printed on their t-shirts. From their parody of big brands like ‘Mahalbro‘ and ‘Can Lah‘, there’s something for every one in their collection of witty, colourful shirts.

Aside from being funny, they’re also political. The 1MDB series like ‘Najipped‘ and their famous tote bag ‘This Is Not A Birkin Bag‘ proves that fashion and culture can go hand to hand, if you’re not so serious all the time.

This time around, Christmas comes once again to bring all the Jho-y! APOM have once again poke fun at the Jho Low scandal with a kickass punchline and we’re loving it. We had a chat with Kelvin Long from APOM! to talk about their Christmas collection, as well as what APOM! is as a brand that takes pride in the Malaysian culture. Stylo, weh.

Jho Low in a Santa costume, it’s funny and we love it. How did you guys come up with the idea?
Well our brand APOM ( A Piece of Malaysia ) looks to find the witty and humourous side of what’s happening in Malaysia and turn it into interesting and unique products. So in time for Christmas we wanted to produce something special that would really resonate with the Malaysian People and also have a bit of tongue in cheek humour as well. And as we all know there is a very famous fugitive on the run who have stolen billions from Malaysians, and we thought it would be great to remind Malaysians of how he lived lavishly and to hopefully use this campaign to remind people he is still out there. So Jholly the Santa idea was born, The Idea was to get people to find him and bring him back to “gift” us back the billions. Jho Jho Jho, Merry Christmas, ‘Tis the season of giving back.

We know that Malaysians take that case seriously, why do you think it’s important to bring the issue into the light yet still make it funny?
We believe there needs to be more humour and laughter everyday. We already know this is a serious, but we also choose to see the we can also see the funnier side to it. I mean no use getting angry and venting it on social media. So we might as well bring more humour into the products we create.

APOM! have always been championing Malaysian culture, how important is it that a brand is not just a brand, but a culture as well?
Wow that’s deep. Need to answer that after my Kopi O KAW! We look at ourselves as a brand that resonates and reflects with Malaysia that particular time. It would be great to sip your coffee 5 years from now from a Jholly mug and remember there was a  time when there was a fugitive on the run that looked very much like Jholly the Santa.

How you guys pick and choose which themes to go with?
We find what is relevant and topical at that particular time of the new collection and brainstorm ideas then, we are very fluid but very picky about what we put out, so if we aren’t having fun or laughing at a particular collection we don’t put it out.

You can get a Jho-yous Christmas with APOM!’s new collection, from tote bags, coasters, greeting cards and more – this phat, rich Santa is running joke of the year.

Cop these Christmas collection APOM!’s flagship store in Bangsar or online.