Two Is Better Than One

DESPITE THE ODDS STACKED AGAINST THEM, IZREE KAI HAFFIZ AND MOHD HAFIZI RADZI WOO FROM FIZIWOO PROVE THAT ALL YOU NEED TO THRIVE IN HARD TIMES IS PURE GRIT, HARD WORK AND THE COURAGE TO TAKE RISKS, WRITES LILY ONG

- Lily Ong

IZREE KAI HAFFIZ

Tell us about yourself, Kai.

I was born to a middle-income family in KL, and I was a straight A student—so because of my good grades, my family had hopes for me to be a professional. But I had always loved the arts and wanted to pursue a career that involved creativity. So, I chose architecture because it is somewhat a combination of both the art and scientific realms.

Why did you switch your focus from architecture to fashion?

As a student, I worked part-time in various projects, from architecture to interior design, furniture design and more, but I never had a chance to explore fashion. So when a mutual friend introduced me to Fizi, we hit it off and talked a lot about his work. I had tried to partner with a designer before, but it did not work out, then I tried again with Fizi, and he was keen as well.

Is Fiziwoo a combination of your names, Haffiz and Radzi Woo?

No, no. See, before we met, Fizi was already joining fashion design competitions under that name! It didn’t make sense for us to change the name after I came onboard.

What has your journey with Fiziwoo taught you?

Wow, it has taught me a lot! It sounds cliché, but it’s true. Fizi and I, we have gone through a lot of suffering to be where we are at today. We had to work hard in the early days to survive. Our first customers were our friends and we barely scraped by at first. We won many fashion competitions and we used the prize money to buy equipment like sewing machines, an outlock machine, fabric, but for our own survival, we had to think of creative ways to get us through those difficult times.

What do you mean by ‘creative ways’?