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Mashizan Masjum – The Broadcast Journalist Turned Celebrity Shoe-Maker

He went for a four-month shoemaking course in Florence, Italy, three years ago.

And Mr Mashizan Masjum has since seen his shoes worn by the likes of TV host Jeannie Mai and Beyonce’s sister, singer Solange Knowles.

Tomorrow, the 43-year-old will take his shoe brand Mashizan to Singapore Fashion Week for its closing event. It will be the brand’s very first fashion show.

Mr Mashizan spent almost 20 years working as a broadcast journalist and documentary producer in Singapore and New York before launching his brand last November. He has released two full collections to date.

His wedges, ankle boots and pumps range from $600 to $1,000 and are sold at Robinsons The Heeren and Julie Nicole at Capitol Piazza.

It’s a dream come true for Mr Mashizan, who has been passionate about women’s shoes since his secondary school days.

“I always think of women’s shoes as a work of art. Even women’s clothes are so beautiful,” he told The New Paper.

“I remember how while I was still studying shoemaking, I was interviewed by a friend and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if a celebrity would wear my shoes in the future?’

“I guess it all worked out.”

His move into fashion and Florence, where he is now based, is not the first time Mr Mashizan has taken himself out of his comfort zone.

In 2005, after working as a broadcast journalist in Singapore for nine years, he moved to New York City without any job offers. It took him six months to find one.

While he loved producing documentaries for outlets like National Geographic and History Channel, his mind was still on shoes.

So he took a sabbatical in 2013 to study shoemaking under the tutelage of Angelo Imperatice, former head designer at luxury brand Salvatore Ferragamo.

ITALY

“I’ve always been fascinated with Italian styles and designs, and I think Italians take great care of their artisanal heritage. That’s why I chose Italy,” said Mr Mashizan.

He was to return to work on documentaries in New York but slowly started prototyping his own designs instead.

“It was a gradual change, as I still wasn’t sure if it was the right path for me,” he said.

Mr Mashizan brings his experience as a documentary producer into his design work.

“I love stringing ideas together, it allows me to tell the story of how a shoe is designed,” he said.

Solange Knowles PHOTO: REUTERS

But with no business or fashion background, the big jump to starting a shoe business was daunting.

“I had to learn everything from scratch, I even learnt from my friends how to do business proposals,” said Mr Mashizan.

“The toughest part was finding the right factory to produce my shoes.

“Compared to big brands like Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, my brand is still very small and new, so why would a factory choose to produce mine?”

Fortunately for him, he found a production manager in Florence who guided him through the industry.

Mr Mashizan’s family and friends were very entertained and enthusiastic by his mid-career switch, and were all supportive, telling him to go for it.

As he looked back on his success, Mr Mashizan cited Olympic gold medallist Joseph Schooling as an affirmation to him.

He said: “Success is hard to gauge.

“I’m definitely not there yet, but it’s the satisfaction I get from empowering women to feel great and strong that keeps me going.

“Don’t dwell on the negativity and always have it in your head that everything is possible if you believe in yourself.”

“I remember how while I was still studying shoemaking, I was interviewed by a friend and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if a celebrity would wear my shoes in the future?’ I guess it all worked out.”

– Mr Mashizan Masjum

Source: www.tnp.sg

October 30, 2016
How Have Ong Ye Kung And Ng Chee Meng Showed Themselves Worthy Of Promotion To Full Ministers?

Two new ministers, Ong Ye Kung and Ng Chee Meng ascended to heaven, pardon me, appointed ministers 1 year after they were elected MPs. What have they proven in that 1 year – nothing except the usual political obfuscation and motherhood speeches.

The former can even be said to have failed first time round back in 2011 – only be reassigned to a shoo-in in 2015.

Like many of the next generation ministers, unproven in a one for one in an election contest and within the PAP uncontested for the ministerial positions they have now been appointed to. From this, the overweening sense of entitlement springs.

Well if you are an MP and especially if one who have serve 2 or more terms, would you not be mightily pissed off? This says service to the nation, ideas, hardwork for the constituents if that way inclined, ambitions for oneself, and fellow citizens, count for nothing so these products of the faux meritocracy based on nothing much more than a set of examination results get an automatic entrance to the cabinet.

The party leader don’t seem even to deem necessary to address the MPs of the merits of these appointments. Forget that the annointed ones even feel the need to persuade the MPs they are deserving. To top it off, the anointed ones will chose the new Prime Minister and the MPs will just have to nod and agree.

Woeful is our bunch of PAP MPs. What utter contempt. That’s what it means to be taken for granted. It is the consequence for being slavishly obedient and being unable or unwilling to stand out. Maybe that part-time job.is just too well paid. Maybe serving the nation is confused with being a nodding head.

* Loyalty to party is a prerequisite to get selected but not to the extent of slavish obedience and lack of dissent. The PAP stands out for not having dissent, very unusual for politics involving alpha-males and queen bees. Or there is no public airing of dissent – also not good for understanding the choices before the nation.

Facebook post by Chris Kuan

Source: www.tremeritus.com

October 30, 2016
Chee Soon Juan: Results Show That Lee Hsien Loong Failed As PM

Public memory is short.

That’s what the PAP is counting on to get through the economic difficulties that we’re rapidly sinking into. But forgetting the past is what will surely prolong our troubles.

Our only hope of recovery is to remember the PAP’s past promises and figure out how and why it has failed to deliver on them.

To do this, we have to go back to 2003 when Mr Lee Hsien Loong, then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, was given the task of heading the Economic Review Committee (ERC). We had just come out of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the dot.com-bubble burst in 2001.

To assist him in the task, Mr Lee convened seven sub-committees and consulted more than 1,000 individuals to produce a roadmap to transform Singapore – within a 15-year time-frame – into a diversified economy “willing to take risks to create fresh businesses and blaze new paths to success”.

By the end of the endeavour, he waxed poetic, “Singapore will have graduated into a knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy. We will be a trend-setting city-state, a creative and entrepreneurial society.”

Now that the 15 years is nearly up, it is pertinent to ask what has been achieved. Apparently not much, according to Mr Lee himself. As he confessed this week: “We are feeling the pains of restructuring, but not yet seeing the dividends of our hard work.”

(Actually, “we” are not feeling anything – Mr Lee continues to draw his princely salary regardless of how he performs whereas workers are facing retrenchments and wage cuts.)

But no matter, Mr Lee insists that he is “pursuing all the right strategies” and is “confident that given time these strategies will work”.

If these “right strategies” have produced little of consequence after 15 years – the economy, still addicted to cheap foreign labour, is anything but innovation-driven; productivity continues to be a drag on growth; our workers are the unhappiest lot in this part of the world and have been for years; income inequality remains one of the highest in the developed world; and the economy is anything but diverse (we rank 5th on the Crony-Capitalism Index) – should reason then not tell us that maybe it is time to consider ditching them and implement genuine reforms?

The painful truth is that the outlook for this country has never been bleaker and, the PM’s blandishments notwithstanding, things will get worse under the PAP’s autocratic but directionless leadership. Many analysts have, in fact, expressed the fear that the current downturn will be protracted.

But it wasn’t that Mr Lee did not know of the seriousness of the problems that our country faced. He acknowledged in the 2003 ERC report that the economy needed “major, fundamental changes, in strategies as well as mindsets”. To do this, he promised that “restructuring will speed up”.

But time has proven the emptiness of that promise.

For one thing, the PAP, through the Temasek Holdings of which PM Lee’s wife is CEO, still has its tentacles in every sector of the local economy. The massive political-corporate nexus has created a non-transparent, unaccountable and kiasi corporate bureaucracy that is anathema to a culture at one with creativity and risk-taking.

Second, if Mr Lee’s call for a knowledge-based economy is real, then why is he hanging on to the decrepit practice of controlling the mass media?

Third, if the intention is to “change mindsets”, then why are our workers still forbidden from independently organising themselves and our people prohibited from freely gathering and speaking up? Mindsets, if it needs to be said at all, cannot be changed by fiat.

After a decade-and-a-half of the PAP’s experiment, the results are in and it is plain that Mr Lee’s attempt at economic restructuring has failed. The reasons are not hard to evince.

The question that Singaporeans must ask is: How much more of Mr Lee’s “restructuring pains” must we endure before we are willing to change?

Source: www.cheesoonjuan.com

October 30, 2016
Pusat Khusus Hasilkan, Eksport Produk Halal Dalam Perancangan

Sebuah pusat khusus bagi para peniaga tempatan untuk menghasilkan dan mengeksport produk halal ke pasaran antarabangsa sedang dalam perancangan.

Ia juga akan menempatkan sebuah pusat kecemerlangan bagi menjamin mutu barangan halal yang dihasilkan di samping meningkatkan daya penghasilan perniagaan.

Rancangan itu dikongsi di majlis perasmian pasaraya My Outlets Global Halal Hub di Chai Chee Road pagi tadi (29 Oktober).

Pusat penghasilan yang dalam perancangan itu bakal mempunyai kilang-kilang makanan halal untuk pasaran tempatan dan luar negara.

Selain itu, ia akan menyediakan khidmat perkongsian dari segi sumber dan tenaga kerja bagi membantu perniagaan mengurangkan kos dan meningkatkan daya penghasilan.

Presiden Dewan Perniagaan dan Perusahaan Melayu Singapura (DPPMS), Encik Zahidi Abdul Rahman berkata: “Kita sedang melakarkan rencana membuat satu program perintis untuk membina sebuah pusat penghasilan makanan dan mengolah makanan halal.

“Kita juga akan mengadakan sebuat pusat kecemerlangan dan mengadakan sistem kawalan yang dapat menentukan proses halal itu adalah jelas dan dipatuhi.”

Untuk menolong para peniaga berkembang, syarikat My Outlets menubuhkan pasaraya My Outlets Global Halal Hub terbaru sebagai satu pusat sehenti untuk semua barangan makanan halal.

Encik Malek Mattar, Ketua Pegawai Eksekutif My Outlets berkata: “Dengan satu hab yang lebih fokus, kita dapat memasarkan barangan ini dengan lebih berkesan lagi. Kesedaran di kalangan pembeli untuk mendapat barang yang betul-betul halal dan tulen memang ada.

“Lantaran itu kita sudah ada anjakan untuk menjadikan produk halal menjadi satu bidang perniagaan yang pasti boleh berkembang.”

Tetamu Terhormat majlis pelancaran itu, Anggota Parlimen GRC Marine Parade, Profesor Madya Dr Fatimah Lateef turut menyeru peniaga Singapura supaya berfikiran luas dan memanfaatkan bantuan pemerintah untuk mengembangkan sayap mereka.

“Inilah minda yang kita ingin pupuk dalam semua peniaga di Singapura. Ini adalah baik dan inilah caranya untuk SME dan perniagaan di Singapura kekal bertahan dan maju walaupun ekonomi lembab pada tahun-tahun yang akan datang ini,” kata Dr Fatimah.

Seluas 10,000 kaki persegi, My Outlets Global Halal Hub menjual lebih 8,000 barangan makanan dari 500 peniaga tempatan dan luar negara.

Syarikat My Outlets juga akan melancarkan wadah edagang tahun ini dan bercadang membuka dua lagi cawangan di utara dan barat Singapura tahun hadapan.

Source: http://berita.mediacorp.sg

October 30, 2016
Islamic Agency Says It Is Empowered To Probe ‘Ninja Joe’ Over Confusing ‘P Ramly’ Burger

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 ― The Negri Sembilan Islamic Religious Affairs Department (JHEAINS) has powers under the law to investigate Ninja Joe over an allegedly confusing name for the latter’s pork burger, its senior officer has said.

The officer, who declined to be named, confirmed that JHEAINS had earlier this week inspected a Ninja Joe outlet in the state following public complaints on the “P. Ramly” burger being confusing, saying that the visit was done even without the presence of the officers from the Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Ministry (KPDNKK).

“No, (not with KPDNKK) because the Islamic department’s officers have been given the powers as Assistant Controllers of Trade Descriptions,” the senior officer of JHEAINS’ halal management division told Malay Mail Online when contacted yesterday.

The officer said JHEAINS’ officers holding the position of Assistant Controllers of Trade Descriptions have the “same powers” as KPDNKK officers and can enforce trade description laws ― which are under KPDNKK’s purview.

“Because halal is part of Trade Descriptions Act 2011, Jakim and the state Islamic councils are the competent authority to certify halal, so based on that, KPDNKK will appoint Jakim and the state Islamic councils’ officers as Assistant Controllers of Trade Descriptions so they can carry out enforcement duties related to halal,” the officer added.

Jakim is the acronym for federal religious body Malaysian Islamic Development Department.

The officer did not specify the provision under which JHEAINS officers could be appointed to such positions, but the Trade Descriptions Act 2011’s Section 3 states that the minister may appoint a Controller, Deputy Controller and Assistant Controllers “among public officers”.

The officer said JHEAINS’ visit to the Ninja Joe outlet was merely an “inspection for clarification and verification” that was done professionally to enforce the Trade Descriptions Act 2011, declining to disclose whether any seizure of evidence was made due to the ongoing matter.

When asked about the enforcement action on Ninja Joe as a non-Muslim owned business, the officer clarified that it was unrelated to the religious status of the operator.

“Even those with halal certification, many of them are non-Muslim; this is not an issue of Muslim or non-Muslim, it is an issue of halal or non-halal,” the officer said.

The officer said that JHEAINS could still probe Ninja Joe despite the latter not claiming to be selling products that are halal, explaining that the ‘halal’ term in the Trade Descriptions (Definition of Halal) Order 2011 extends to phrases that are confusing.

“It doesn’t hold a halal certificate and it did not claim its product as halal, there are no such issues; the issue is just the use of a confusing name, so when it is confusing, we carry out inspections to see if the matter really happened,” the officer said, referring to Ninja Joe.

The officer cited the Trade Descriptions Act as the law which JHEAINS officer was investigating Ninja Joe under, specifically citing the Act’s subsidiary regulation of Trade Descriptions (Definition of Halal) Order 2011.

While the officer did not specify the provision in the 2011 order, its Section 3 makes it an offence to breach a long list of conditions for foods or goods to be either described as halal or described in any other expression to show that they can be consumed or used by Muslims.

The officer said JHEAINS will be sending its investigation findings to both KPDNKK and Jakim, and may continue taking enforcement action if there are more complaints against Ninja Joe or if new information surfaces.

When contacted, Jakim’s Halal Hub division director Dr Sirajuddin Suhaimee said the “P. Ramly” burger issue falls under KPDNKK’s jurisdiction.

“Because it is under the Trade Descriptions Act, it is not under the regulation of Jakim,” he told Malay Mail Online.

He said Jakim is merely the halal certification body, and is not carrying out its own investigation or coordinating investigations by Islamic departments from other states on Ninja Joe.

While Jakim and state Islamic departments’ officials can be appointed by KPDNKK to assist the ministry, the state Islamic departments that are probing Ninja Joe will be sending all their findings to KPDNKK, he said.

Malay Mail Online has contacted Ninja Joe but has yet to receive a response.

Despite Ninja Joe’s posters on the “P. Ramly” burger clearly stating that it contained pork, several Muslim consumers and the Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia were earlier this week reported complaining about the name’s alleged confusing and disrespectful nature.

Ninja Joe yesterday published an apology on its official Facebook page, reiterating that it has taken down all posters advertising the “P. Ramly” burger and will be renaming it.

The burger chain previously told Malay Mail Online that the “P” in the “P. Ramly” burger launched on Hari Merdeka stands for pork, while the word “Ramly” was aimed at paying homage to the iconic Malaysian brand “Ramly Burger” and was unrelated to the late Malaysian artiste Tan Sri P. Ramlee.

October 30, 2016