Indosole Blog & News

Being located in Indonesia and Northern California, we are fortunate enough to be surrounded by some of worlds most beautiful cultures and climates. With Indonesia’s booming influx of tourism, as well as an outdated awareness of waste reduction, the amount of litter and lack of reusable resources/recycling, the quick deterioration of its beauty is easily apparent.   In light of #WorldEnvironmentDay2017 theme: “Connecting people to nature”, we challenge you to find fun and exciting ways to experience and cherish the places you love. As the landscape and people of Bali has captivated us so much that we set out to save 1 million tires from burning by transforming discarded tires into soles.  So far succeeded in saving over fifty thousand tires from the flames, we are well on our way. To us, Bali & California are places those special places that matter. We feel a strong social responsibility towards protecting these amazing places we call home. We love hearing about your favorite places! Show us your place that matters this #WorldEnvironmentDay!    

The Slow and Indosole are teaming up for a family affair on the 27th of May together with the boys of Reverberation Radio, joining us all the way from LA to play an all vinyl set! After their stop at Coachella and backing up Beck, they’re on their first Asia tour and are hitting up Canggu in Bali for a quick stint at The Slow.   Indosole presents: “The Essentials”On this night we are proud to launch our new handcrafted line called “ The Essentials” which is the first of it’s kind - sustainable, all natural rubber footbeds produced here in Indonesia with our signature tire soles and in a full range of kolours representing elements we want to protect.   Reverberation Radio Formed by Los Angeles band Allah-Las and friends, Reverberation Radio has grown into a much-loved online institution. Their weekly podcast serves up an illuminative, heart-warming and enchanting selection of lost-gem tracks. They encourage listeners to discover new artists and expand their understanding of how music from each decade is intertwined, revolving, and relative. The SlowThe Slow is a multifaceted island stay, incorporating boutique accommodation, all-day dining and specialty signature batched drinks, art, local, culture, and interactive retail, this all set on the coast of Canggu, Bali. A stay at The Slow is an immersive experience. Designed and curated by George Gorrow, the eclectic space gravitates around Gorrow’s personal art collection. The restaurant Eat & Drink by chef Shannon Moran is already listed as one of Bali's top 10 restaurants. We are stoked to celebrate this night with our closest of Bali friends, the ones who make it happen here, the ones we love and the ones we love to have a good time with. RSVP here! Free house pour wine and beer from 7-8pm and 2 for 1 Sid’s boozy infusions from 8-9pm and nothing but good times.       The SlowWEBSITE: http://www.theslow.id/INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/the.slow/ Reverberation RadioWEBSITE: http://reverberationradio.com/SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/reverberation-radioINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/reverberationradio Allah-LasWEBSITE: http://allah-las.com/INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/allahlas/

With Mother's Day around the corner, we thought we'd honor and celebrate some of our favorite Mom’s in the world - the Indo Crew Mom’s!  We all had amazing childhoods, growing up all over the globe and decided to do some digging up of our fondest memories. All these years and a few better haircuts later, we would like to do a shout out to the most beautiful women in our lives. There’s no way we’d be where we are today without the love and support of these rockstars. So here’s to you Moms, thank you for dealing with all our crazy shenanigans, being the magical key to our success and simply who we have become today. Happy Mother’s day! We love you.   Kyle: "My Mom's Italian roots, smile, humor and love for adventure lives on! Thanks for making me who I am mom."   Kai: “From the beginning - life in Indonesia with My mom was filled with fun times, birthday cakes, Orangutans, and an occasional Nasi Goreng :)."   Chris: “You have always been there for me and have always allowed me to be me! I love you so much!”   Micah: “Moving from sunny Miami to rainy Amsterdam together, to me now running off to Bali. We’ve come such a long way! You’re a total powerhouse, such an inspiration and I love you so much.”   Killian: "Thanks mum, for always keeping my head above water!"

It may not look like it but Kai Paul was born and raised in Indonesia. He grew up in Jakarta with his parents who were school teachers at the Jakarta International School. As a young redhead kid living in Jakarta, Kai got to experience what it is like growing up in a developing nation with a pollution problem. This past February, Kai returned to his family’s alma mater and took the stage at TEDxJIS. Kai took this opportunity to share his passion for his home country of Indonesia and vision for the future of waste management and the emerging “Secondary Resource Market” aka “Modern Day Mining.” “I love Indonesia with all my heart, and that is why I am willing to fight for her. Because I am afraid of the changes we see happening before our eyes.”       Young Kai and his Dad on a boat in Bali (1980’s)                            Young Kai and his Mom in the clean Bali ocean (1980’s)     Now, Kai is a grown man and managing a business (Indosole) which focuses on preventing waste tires from ending up in landfills and giving them new life as saleable products. Kai has done substantial research on the pollution problems facing Indonesia and the world. It’s time to turn those problems into profitable solutions. “If you break down a tire you will get Rubber, Oil, Steel, all valuable commodities on their own.” Every day we are taking resources from the earth - it’s time we take less and work with what we already have - the tons of usable waste materials both going to and sitting in landfills. Let’s look at this waste as an untapped resource. What if we started doing things differently? What if businesses and the governments started investing into these ideas and if each one of our communities adopted them? Click HERE to watch Kai’s Talk now and at the end ask yourself “What if.” Enjoy!

As a brand that started as a hobby and with suitcases full of sandals wheeling through airports, we at Indosole enjoy hearing about other brand's journey and their respective labor of love. We are all underdogs! We met the Topiku brothers Max and Monty last year at an event in San Francisco. Turned out they have a similar mission for the country of Indonesia and a cool conscious product. We asked them to tell their story and equally important to touch on the challenges they have faced along the way.  Here it is and we hope you enjoy Topiku's story! "The Accidental Entrepreneur"   Building a business is tough. Building a socially-minded one is even tougher. Add 9,000 miles of separation and being a full-time college student into the mix, and you have Topiku’s current situation.  Hi, I’m Monty, a 22 year old senior at the University of Southern California, founder and CEO of Topiku: a social enterprise based in California and Indonesia. We’re on a mission to become the world’s most sustainable hat manufacturer, with products handcrafted from upcycled + recycled waste by Indonesian artisans.  We’re still young (we’ve been building our brand for the lesser part of two years), but it’s been incredible watching our mission and network organically grow. However, it’s been a constant struggle learning how to balance and schedule my time between school and personal endeavors.  Back in the summer of 2014, I was an aimless freshman in college who had just given up his dream of becoming an architect. I hated having to fly back to Jakarta to visit my family with all its traffic, craziness, and dirtiness—a stark difference from the comfortable southern Californian atmosphere that I had grown accustomed to. Driven by an overarching desire to create a positive social and environmental impact, I took an internship at a NGO called XS Project. They worked with a community of trash-pickers who lived in a slum of Jakarta, creating value-added products out of the waste that they collected as well as providing front-end jobs. Whilst working for them, I proposed a new product for them: a hat made from upcycled car seat vinyl. Long story short, they rejected my idea; disheartened, I tossed the idea on the backburner.  It wasn’t until I returned to campus—when I showed my friend (who eventually became my business partner) my prototype hats (see below) and told him my story—when the notion of Topiku as a business was born. Reflecting back on Topiku’s formative days on the heels of a quick Topiku Indonesia trip reminds me of just how far I’ve come on this journey of accidental social entrepreneurship. Back then, I definitely did not fully understand the multifaceted and complex concept of sustainability—I simply had an idea for repurposing discarded materials. Was using salvaged material enough to justify sustainability? I wasn’t thinking about who or how they would be made...  Today, Topiku has grown to encompass more than just a mish-mash of up-cycled materials; it’s really come to represent an entire ecosystem of not just professional meaning, but a deeply personal one as well. Over the past few years, I’ve had the honor of working closely alongside inspiring artisans, whom I count amongst the most dedicated and passionate individuals that I’ve ever met. Some highlights: Watching Ninda, who hand-sews all of our bamboo tees, grow from a sole-proprietorship to managing a team of five Visiting Anton’s innovative factory in Gresik, Surabaya, which has engineered a process for recycling cotton and polyester sourced from old clothes and plastic bottles Collaborating with Bang Sano, who leads the environmental movement in Indonesia through his organization, Waste4Change, on various initiatives, from mentorship, to advocacy, to sponsorship of 12 of his trash-pickers’ health insurances And finally, last but certainly not least, observing our community of hat artisans in Cigondewah, Indonesia—led by Kang Asep—develop into a thriving village, where incomes are re-invested into things such as education and health, and corollary industries have emerged as a direct result of exposure to sustainable products and international markets. “I want to dispel the notion that sustainable, socially-impactful products come at the cost of good design and affordability.” As our brand has grown, the bottlenecks and challenges of working with trash as an input have become more apparent. At times, there can be a tension between the trade-offs of good design and good recycling; it really is a balancing act. Many companies with an emphasis on recycling can have some very—for lack of a better term—obvious-looking recycled products (read: ugly and badly designed), take for instance the blatantly upcycled/recycled tote bags that you might find in Ubud or Costa Rica (or even Whole Foods now!).  Do a Google search for “recycled hat” right now—you’ll find some creative ideas, but nothing you’d wear casually. The designs really don’t leave much to the imagination. I want to dispel the notion that sustainable, socially-impactful products come at the cost of good design and affordability.  Thankfully, this past trip has addressed many of the issues that we’ve been facing—particularly scalability. For the past year and a half, the main base of our hats has been made out of upcycled cotton jacket cuts. Upcycling is awesome because it diverts materials from ending up in landfills as well as incentivizes upstream, sustainable employment (read: trashpickers) and even has additional positive externalities, such as waste management and ecological responsibility advocacy. However, small-batch upcycling is not inherently sustainable and is a true bottleneck to spreading our message. This is where Anton, who I mentioned earlier, comes into play; unlocking an efficient production system that can enable sustainable production—in both the environmental and economic sense—is truly pivotal. His source of raw recycled cotton and rPET yarn will allow us to expand our capacity and catalogue in the long run.  I couldn’t be more stoked to be where I’m at today; passionately putting hours on a project that has quickly become my top priority. As the company has grown, so have I. It’s funny to be able to participate in events that would have made me uncomfortable in the past, namely, public speaking. Last week I had my first ever business pitch competition, and I just got word I’m moving on to the final round. On Tuesday I was invited to speak at UC San Diego for their Green Talks event to speak about my understanding of sustainability. Totally had to miss class for all these events ;)  In this age of mass information and demagoguery, it’s easy to feel pessimistic about the world; but looking ahead, I am optimistic that folks like you and I are beginning to appreciate values such as fair trade, women’s empowerment, environmental sustainability, responsible waste management, and cultural preservation through conscious capitalism. I truly believe that social enterprises such as ourselves and Indosole can empower these values to flourish—but we can’t do it alone. It will literally take a village. Monty | monty@topiku.co  You can find Topiku at topiku.co or: Instagram Facebook Store        

A few months ago we were contacted by Joshua Shuckman, who runs "Social Change Nation" -  a site and podcast dedicated to promoting cause minded organizations and businesses. We finally got Kyle Parsons, Indosole's founder and president, on the phone to do an episode of Social Change Nation and the results were  pretty awesome. So if you want to hear how it all got started, the ups and downs of running a socially conscious business, and everything in between go ahead and listen to part 1 of Kyle's interview here: https://socialchangenation.com/029-part-1-kyle-parsons-of-indosole/ If you need it on the go, Social Change Nation is also available for download on Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-social-change-social/id921408507

Yogabarn – Ubud, Bali Indosole is proud to announce our entry into the world of yoga this week as we now have a location at the beautiful Yogabarn in Bali. This is a huge moment for us as we start selling Indo’s in a completely new industry and can’t wait to see how the Yogi’s like our style!! Yogabarn is a relaxing and genuine place full of calm and healing that really aligns well with our mission statement and engages people to want to conserve the environment as we do. So, if you’re ever in Bali and want a spot to rest yourself after a day on the water, check out our friends at www.theyogabarn.com and don’t forget to grab a new pair of Indo’s!!

It’s time to get personal! As we know, Indosole would be nothing without our super hard-working team over in Bali so we thought we’d share a little about two of our ‘Indo-Family’. Meet Komang, our factory Manager from Denpasar, Bali. Komang is 28 years old and has already been making shoes for 10 years – 5 of those for Indosole! Komang is the brains of the Bali operation and we are so glad to have her on our team! Komang likes to rock her favorite pair of black Kelapa’s each day when coming to work at the Indosole factory and who can blame her? They look great! Thanks Komang!! Meet Dodi... He is our upper construction worker who has been part of the Indosole team for 3 years and already a household name around the Bali factory. Dodi is originally from the city of Surabaya on the island of Java and is married with a one-year-old baby. His favorite shoe is the black Prahu so enjoys being able to make them too! Komang and Dodi are what we simply call “Great Humans” and want to thank them for all the hard work they put in to make the Indosole dream a reality. With Komang, Dodi and the rest of the crew in Bali by our side we are well on our way to saving 1 Million waste tires in Indonesia and making what we call “Soles with Soul!”

Luxurious and hip are two perfectly suited words to help describe the island of Bali, Indonesia, and inevitably placing it high on the tourist destinations list. Bali has inspired tourists and transplants to help make and support Bali in becoming a cleaner and more environmentally conscious place. Change can come about through education, and with different inspiring projects and movements immersing,  this well needed change in Bali is definitely starting to be seen, and more importantly felt within the community. EcoBali recycling is undeniably at the forefront of these namely inspiring projects. It was Founded in 2006 by individualsd who unanimously had the burning desire to respond to the waste management issues in Bali and actually do something about it. Envisioning a 'Zero Waste' policy as their solution, EcoBali takes matters into their own hands by operating its own facilities such as sorting and material recovery. In providing services such as waste separation, recycling and composting, collecting an average 15 tons of non-organic waste every month, their sustainable solutions to waste management have replenished a staggering 50-70% waste reduction. With different initiatives, like adopt a school, within the project, EcoBali recycling aims to increase the inherent needed awareness on a broad spectrum, educating on the best environmental practices achievable among individuals, communities and businesses. Initiatives like this are a sign of greater things to come for Bali, allowing it to maintain its luxurious and unique status. For those who want to enjoy their stay in Bali without feeling guilty of joining that pollution bandwagon, ecoBali is the best and easiest solution. Do your research and get involved!