Pestle & Mortar

Pestle & Mortar: Say Hello To The New Malaysia Boleh!by Miranda Yeoh on Friday, 8th June 2012

What is the process of each product/line, from the drawing board to the finished product? Also how/where your tees are made?

Each design goes through a process that starts with an idea or a thought that ends up in a brainstorming and research period, to understand the workability of the design. If a design has been decided on we then move on to working the idea of the design, sometimes even opening up to our friends for a more diverse take on a design. Once the design gets finalized and is executed, we test it out on print with our manufacturer to see what the final product will look like. We usually have discussions after that to go over our designs and which to approve for manufacturing. Right now, everything is produced locally, simply because we have quality control capabilities here. We can oversee each product from start to finish and make sure we get it exactly how we want it. Although, we’ve recently decided to expand our range to more than just T-shirts and thus have been poking and prodding around South East Asia looking for certain things.

What were other names suggested before settling on “Pestle & Mortar”?

The moment we decided and agreed we would actually be doing this, we knew we had to think of a suitable name for ourselves. Two brainstorming sessions and countless names later, we narrowed it down to a few choices and were quite set on the name “The Fifth Estate” but one Google search later and we were back to square one. Then one day at the mamak, someone mentioned “Pastel”, to which Arnold asked if we knew what a “pestle” was, and the rest is history.

So tell us what’s in the plan for Pestle & Mortar this 2012?

We’re trying to step up our game and run Pestle & Mortar like a proper business, which is why Mark has joined us to handle our accounts (it used to be a sheet of A4 paper hand-written by Arthur that never balanced out!) and ensure...