Local shoe brand Men’s Republic a few weeks ago posted to its Instagram account a photo saying goodbye and thank you to its customers and followers. Not long after, the brand posted another post clarifying that it decided to discontinue its operations. 

Before announcing its shutdown, the brand had not posted for almost four months to Instagram, with some comments saying that it has closed down its official website as well as its shops at e-commerce platforms. 

Men’s Republic owner Yasa Singgih shared the stories behind the closure on his Instagram. He stated that the cash flow issue was the main reason that marked the beginning of Men’s Republic’s downfall. 

“The only way to grow a retail business is to increase production continuously. The money we received from profits will definitely be used to do so,” Yasa wrote on his Instagram post. It went like that all along to the point where the production costs piled up and the brand eventually slumped. 

Yasa also shared that back in 2016-2017, prior to its downfall - where the brand experienced its peak, some of the investors wanted to buy, invest, or acquire Men’s Republic, but he decided to not go for it. He rejected the offers as he thought that the brand was already profitable enough and growing, and he could handle everything by himself. Therefore, he didn’t see the need to cooperate with another party, splitting the profit. 

He admitted that it was a wrong move. Not long after, he lost his passion to continue the business. He was too caught up; all he did was to increase the production and hard-selling products, and eventually the brand became profit-oriented. 

“The production was based only on our feelings, not on the data. Therefore, a lot of our products failed in the market. To make it worse, all of our products did not go through a research and development process,” he wrote. The brand overlooked the importance of incorporating creativity and art; it became irrelevant with the current trend and its customers.

Around 2018 and 2019, the whole issue turned into a vicious circle - he did not know which one to solve first.

Another issue also emerged. The logo that the Men’s Republic has been using since its rebranding in 2017, which it bought for Rp3 million from a logo designer, turned out to be a plagiarised logo from English and Irish brands. 

The brand has tried to contact the original designer of the heart-shaped like logo to buy it, but to no avail. “[We] lost our heart,” the brand wrote on its Instagram post. It thought of changing the logo, but it will bring up much more implications as it has produced quite a lot of raw material as well as promotional materials with the logo, not to mention that it would have to re-educate the public if they decided to do so. Not long after, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the business nosedived, so Yasa decided to close down the brand.

In the comment section, however, when responding to its customers’ comment, the brand said that soon it will share the more detailed version of the story and what is next for the brand. However, at the time of writing, there is still no announcement made.