A life of fashion and good friends

Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

It was 1968, the country was slowly returning to normalcy after the turmoil of the previous three years and designer Peter Sie took time to survey the fashion landscape around him.

He had every reason to feel pleased about his own success. He was famous as the first designer to bring haute couture to the country, and also the first male Indonesian to overcome stigma and stereotypes to make his mark in designing women's wear.

But he was not pleased by what he saw around him. He felt alone.

"I felt like I was standing in the middle of this vast, barren piece of land, all by myself, with not one fashion photographer or fashion writer around," Peter said on Tuesday at his home in Tebet, South Jakarta.

He put his feelings down in a short article in the daily Kompas.

Gradually, the landscape changed for the better. Despite all its negatives, the Soeharto years brought development and an attendant appreciation of fashion, once only for the elite, to the public at large. Women's magazine Femina began its Young Designers Contest (Peter was part of the jury for the first 11 years), which has proved to be the launching pad for the careers of many budding designers.

Today, at the age of 72 and with his autobiography Mode adalah Hidupku (Fashion is My Life) in bookstores, Peter is not alone anymore. Fashion designers are respected, and some, like Oscar Lawalata, have emerged as stars of pop culture.

He says he is "proud" of the accomplishments of young Indonesian designers such as Biyan and Sebastian Gunawan, the latter's elegant evening wear reminiscent of Peter's own Christian Dior-inspired designs of the 1950s and 1960s.

"There are so many good designers now, they are so talented, it makes me proud ... From Biyan, who has started exporting his clothes, to Ghea (Panggabean) and Carmanita and Sebastian ... I think Sebastian is so talented, really special. I look at some of his designs and think, 'I wish I had designed that.'"

Of course, there are the "what ifs?", like what would Peter have accomplished if he was coming of age today, in a more tolerant and appreciative era. Inevitably, as a pioneer he laid the path for others to reap the benefits.

He admits that he sometimes has that same "crazy notion", but only fleetingly, choosing instead to focus on what he can do to help his young colleagues in their careers.

"When the Femina contest started, I saw some of the young designers were really gifted at making sketches, but there were shortcomings, the clothes themselves were lacking, the finishing or stitching was poor," he said.

"I told (Femina chief) Pia Alisyahbana to send them to me in the three months before the show, and I would help them to get things right."

Peter has thus been both a pioneer and also, I venture, something of a "midwife" in being there to smoothen the process for others' careers to come to fruition.

"I've never thought about it that way, but, yes, perhaps you're right. I did try to do my part for others."

An admitted rascal of a child, Peter remembers being transfixed by the sight of a kindly neighbor, Mak Uwek, toiling away at her sewing machine.

"I was fascinated by the sewing machine and how it worked, how the sewing was done. But, of course, it was always, 'go away, go away, this is not for little boys' ... That was my awakening but I pushed it back, pushed it back, because I could not discuss it with my friends, no boys did things like that."

He found another escape at the movie theater, watching the parade of Hollywood fashion on movie stars like Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh, Lana Turner and the 1930s' teen idol Deanna Durbin.

"Privately, I wondered how do you come around to making these beautiful dresses, and then I did."

His secret love of fashion was allowed to blossom when his older sister and brother-in-law decided to move to the Netherlands and invited him to join them. In a Europe slowly stirring from the austerity of the grim years of World War II, Peter chose to pursue his interest in fashion, although he remained within society's dictates by choosing to study men's tailoring.

The debut of Christian Dior's revolutionary "New Look" in the 1950s, with its elegant and functional lines for women tired of the same old dresses, changed his mind. He decided that women's fashion was his true calling.

It was not an easy decision, with the associations of effeminacy and homosexuality for men in the fashion business, but ultimately Peter's brother-in-law, Han Yao, supported him as he took night classes.

But there were more problems when Peter returned to Jakarta five years later. No clothesmakers would hire him ("they looked at me as this strange creature, a man wanting to make women's clothes") and his family was alarmed by his decision. One uncle scolded him for "embarrassing" his family.

He has told the story of his family's rejection of his profession countless times over the years, but there is still a wounded quality to his voice. Tellingly, his book is dedicated to his mother and Han Yao.

"He was not only a brother to me, but also a father, the father I never had. And, I think, on top of that, he was my friend, because he was my confidante, I could go to him to discuss things ... "

He may have been hurt, but he is also proud. He decided to open his own business from his home, and gradually word of mouth spread about the young man who made beautiful dresses. In 1959, at the encouragement of several of his clients, he held his debut fashion show at Hotel Des Indes (now Duta Merlin shopping complex). It was a departure from the entertainment spectacles of the country's usual fashion shows, with the clothes taking center stage this time.

That pioneering step would have been enough to make him a footnote in the history of Indonesian fashion. But his talent and meticulous craftsmanship (fellow designer and friend Iwan Tirta accredits it to his study of the precise details of menswear) brought him a loyal clientele and an enduring name to this day.

He also is known as a kind and giving man. He has fostered several children (he writes about them in the autobiography) and has a loyal retinue of long-serving assistants, one of whom, Suzie, watches and listens intently throughout the interview. In one of the most touching passages of the autobiography, he tells of returning to look for Mak Uwek several years ago and doing his best to make her last years comfortable.

He has devoted friends, people like Iwan and journalist Daisy Hadmoko and Myra Sidharta, who cowrote his autobiography, what he calls "the family I never had". He says he is not a rich man, but he has had a successful career and his peers today gratefully acknowledge his contribution to their industry.

"I count my blessings. I think that all these problems that I've had from the beginning have made me strong ... I've wanted to sew the sleeves myself, base the color myself and (my life) has been valued because of that ... "

And he still dreams. He hopes that, one day, Jakarta, with all its talented and productive designers, will be a center for fashion in Asia. Perhaps it will not happen in his lifetime, but if and when it does, Peter Sie will have every reason to be proud.