He was a management consultant; she’s a Harvard grad. Now they sell pre-owned clothes

Alifa Putri, 33, admired Adi Nagara, 40, in 2015 while watching him cut mangoes in Jakarta. Within weeks, an international romance was in full swing.

Alifa Putri (left) admired Adi Nagara in 2015 while watching him cut mangoes in Jakarta.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Adi: I remember when I first saw Alifa: the room in Jakarta City Hall, where she was sitting, the shade of her T-shirt. It was 10 years ago and we were both on a three-month internship for the governor. I was 30, she was 23.

After the internship, Alifa invited six of us to come to her family’s house in her hometown, Bandung [in Indonesia’s West Java province], at New Year. I knew I liked her. We were all sleeping on the floor in the living room and, one evening, she went past and I grabbed her ankle. I was a bit playful; it felt like a good enough gesture. In my Indonesian family, we don’t talk about this sort of thing: [in terms of the “love language” theory] we’re 95 per cent “acts of service”.

Something sparked between us, but in January 2016, I had to leave for an eight-month management-consulting project in Dubai. Five months later, Alifa was accepted into Harvard Graduate School of Design [in Cambridge, Massachusetts] and arranged to spend a day with me in Dubai on the way. I didn’t bring my A-game, though: I had a hangover and it was a 45-degree day. I thought, “What have I done?”

Luckily, she forgave me because when my contract ended, we spent three months together in Massachusetts; it was autumn and beautiful and we biked everywhere. When I couldn’t get a visa to stay, I went to the UK, then Australia.

We had meet-ups in Peru, the UK, Estonia and Shanghai, although the last is probably the most memorable. My flight was massively delayed and we had no way of contacting each other [WhatsApp is banned in China]. Alifa waited 11 hours at the airport for me and then got stuck outside the apartment we’d rented until 3am, unable to open the door.

‘People ask if I ever have enough of Alifa, living and working together. I tell them no.’

Adi Nagara

I eventually arrived at 4pm the next day. I was coming out of the shower when she gave me a piece of wood she’d engraved with the words, “Will you marry me?” and a plastic ring. It wasn’t emotional: we were both just relieved. Adi graduated from Harvard in 2018, and we got married in Sydney the same year Alifa is very proactive, super-ambitious and task-focused; I’m much more conservative. There’s friction in those styles, but I’m a lot more rounded now because of her. I’ve learnt the value of reciprocity and how to say sorry.

Leaving management consultancy to join her at SwapUp [Alifa’s start-up is an online store for second-hand clothes] has been good – once I accepted that I’d earn less. I no longer wake up with migraines. Now flattening boxes, cleaning the toilet and vacuuming make me happy. People ask if I ever have enough of Alifa, living and working together. I tell them no.

When I was a kid, I lived near a tennis court and wanted to play, but it cost too much: it was a luxury. Living in Sydney, I became obsessed with watching it. One day, Alifa said to me, “You know you could afford to play now? You could get yourself a good racquet.” Now I play regularly and I’m not bad at it. That’s Alifa. She helps me grow, points out things that I can’t see, reminds me of things I’d forgotten. The tennis is a constant reminder of that.

Adi Nagara and Alifa Putri. “There’s no way I could have done SwapUp without him: I had the ideas, but he has the energy,” says Putri.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Alifa: One of my first memories of Adi in Jakarta was when a team member was sent a 30-kilogram crate of mangoes from her family’s hometown. Adi was the only guy who volunteered to cut them. He was just there, cutting up the mangoes, chatting with the ladies.

When I invited the group to Bandung, there was a day when he just started kind of holding my hand. I thought, “Actually, this isn’t bad.”

After he left for Dubai, I thought that was that, but we kept chatting on the phone every day. Visiting him there was actually really crap. I had so much expectation: we hadn’t seen each other for seven months. I was hoping he’d be affectionate and show me around, but the whole time he was, “I’ve got this headache …” Afterwards, he called me more often, which I guess was his way of apologising.

‘I loved that Adi didn’t feel resentful that he’d married a Harvard graduate who now wanted to sell second-hand dresses.’

Alifa Putri

He was unhappy in Dubai and I suggested he come to the US. I was under a lot of pressure, but every day Adi would make me dinner, bike over to the campus with it, make sure I ate it and go home. He’s not the kind to say, “I love you”, but he’d do all these caring things – like putting a glass of water beside the bed for me every night – that really touched me.

After Donald Trump’s election in 2016, it was tricky for foreigners to get a visa, so Adi had to leave. We had to do the long-distance thing again. Adi would never say he missed me and I was the annoying girlfriend seeking reassurance. He’d just say, “I’ll see you in a few months. What are you worried about?” It was really annoying. By 2018, though, I was thinking, “There’s only one Adi in the world and I love him.” I decided to leave my job offer in the US and move to Sydney to be with him.

When we started living together, we fought a lot. Then his family came to visit us and I noticed their love language is doing things for each other; it doesn’t involve saying sorry. After a fight, they’d just go back to normal. In my family, we talk, we cry and then say, “OK, we’ll do better next time”. He’s learnt to express himself and I’ve learnt to give him space.

We started SwapUp in 2021. I’m a big thrifter and wanted to create an outlet for quality, used garments. At the start, it was just the two of us in a van picking up clothes all over Sydney. I loved that Adi didn’t feel resentful that he’d married a Harvard graduate with a promising career who now wanted to sell second-hand dresses. He trusted me. Our living room was a photo studio full of boxes and camping chairs, but Adi was always like, “We love camping. Isn’t it fun eating dinner in our camping chairs watching TV?”

There’s no way I could have done SwapUp without him: I had the ideas, but he has the energy. Before, I’d always ask him, “Are you happy?” I saw the bags under his eyes when he was doing management-consulting. I knew he was dreading it, but he’s not the complaining type.

When we opened the shop, one friend who knew how we’d met brought a big box of mangoes. She said, “Cutting up mangoes is sexy, right?” And yes. A man who does work in the house, who looks after me, and so many others, and is so generous, is very, very sexy.

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