A life of fashion and good friends

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.