By: Yu Shan
Adore New York Fashion Week and can’t get enough of Milan Fashion week online? Well, Jakarta Fashion Week may not hold the same international allure, but it is certainly an important event to take note of, especially for those hailing from South East Asia, and it would be easier on the purse to attend.
This year’s Jakarta Fashion Week took place from 20th to 24th August 2008 in Pacific Place shopping center, Sudirman Business District, Jakarta. The address does sound staid and dull (compared to Bryant Park!) but rest assured, Jakarta Fashion Week is anything but. This year, there were as many as 47 local and international designers participating in this event.
Other than the up-and-coming, whose names will not roll off our tongues until the after parties, the biggest names displaying their designs at this particular event include Stefanus Hamy, Taruna Kusmayadi, Valentino Napitupulu, Defrico Audy, Chossy Latu, Hengki Kawilarang, Rusli Tjohnardi, Harry Ibrahim, Syahreza Muslim and Jeanny Ang.
But why should one have given up their comfortable curl on the couch in front of Fashion TV to pay attention to this relatively small scale runway? Tanudi Kusmayadi, the chairman of the Indonesian Fashion Designers Association provided the answer – there were designs taken from local culture, armed with the fact that much government support was involved to aid those without their own resources to showcase their designs.
Need more persuasion before diverting your clicks from style.com or raising your eyes from the heavy tome that is the September issue of American Vogue? Unlike the bigger and arguably better fashion weeks out there, this one has not yet been commercialized, and is completely “targeted to consumers only”. This sets it apart from London, Paris and Milan, as close to no buyers attended. In the language of us, the consumer, this means greater consumer sovereignty, or that designers would pay more attention to merging their design concepts with what the consumer wants to wear.
Yet as many foreign reporters have been invited to cover the event this year, we might gradually find this up and coming fashion week to become a balancing act for these designers. International and commercialized success seems just over the horizon for all of them, but all of us South East Asians hope that they will still hold true to their design and cultural roots and pay attention to what we want.
They have certainly done quite a good job so far…
Cocktail Dress by Rebecca Ing
Cocktail design by Jazz Pasey (I heart the neckline! Or should it be bustline?)
If they manage to keep it up, they should hit closer to the (South East Asian) spot than London, Paris and Milan…
Image source: seattlepi.nwsource.com
Related links:
Femina Group – Jakarta Fashion Week
Fashion Windows – Jakarta Fashion Week
Slacker Chic – Rebecca Ing and Jazz Pasey
