Designer Harry Darsono turns home into museum

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): A few years ago, a short circuit caused a terrible fire in the South Jakarta home of fashion designer Harry Darsono. Many a precious possession was destroyed as the walls of the building caved in.

But in the midst of the ruins the eclectic designer discovered his entire collection of costumes peeping out of the debris. When he pulled the costumes out, some designed as long ago as 30 years, he found that not a stitch was singed.

For Harry the experience was like an omen.

He began immediately to rebuild the house with a grand marble staircase snaking up to the second floor, topped with a Saracenic baroque dome and in a style also inspired by Moorish Spain. This was to be a temple dedicated to crafts like embroidery and tailoring.

"I want to share everything with everyone. I don't want to lock away anything and leave it in the storeroom anymore," Harry told The Jakarta Post on the eve of his 51st birthday on March 15, that was celebrated as a thanksgiving gathering. His museum of textile design and contemporary costumes is still under construction but already open to the public.

Of course, the main exhibits are colorful examples of costumes designed and embroidered by Harry from way back in the 1970s to his latest creations. But to visit the museum is also to be transported back into time to the Italian Renaissance when European societies were not just a repository of tradition but also centers of innovation. What excites Harry about everything baroque is the grandeur involved in all aspects of creative activity of that period.

The museum is an attempt to create a certain mood imbued with a certain attitude.

The front door opens out onto a reddish-brown, marble floor engraved in black with HDC for Harry Darsono Couture. The hallway is a cluster of mirrors, lights, carpets and hundreds of artifacts. Bach is in the air as the ground floor comes into view and also a classical painting of Harry depicted as an angel on a piano as a number of other cherubic faced angels flutter around in adoration.

The area is crowded with period furniture and mirrors framed in gold, providing a stunning background to black mannequins in the image of Moors that stand at every nook and cranny. They are draped in beads, silk, satin and stunning head dresses while more costumes in organza and organdy hang in other rooms in wardrobes that have their doors wide open.

Tables are laden with gigantic candelabras flickering mysterious shadows on delicately designed pieces of porcelain also by Harry. There is embroidery on cushions, handbags and wall hangings. On the first floor, long tables are strewn with patterns, cloth, beads and threads in every possible color with about half a dozen youngsters busy at work. Harry has taught more than 4,000 people, in Indonesia and around the world, the art of both simple and intricate embroidery.

To continue learning, Harry travels far and wide within the country to bring back the craft of the Minangkabau of West Sumatra and North Sulawesi, where the age-old techniques of tikam jejak (heavy needlework) and kerawang (open needlework) are still used. Then there is the patchwork technique made into beautiful jackets and skirts, inspired by elderly ladies in traditional societies who had little better to do but to sew together different types of leftover cloth into a blanket or a bed cover. The idea is not to return to the past but to learn from it even as people continue to evolve and to add to all the beauty already created before.

Creations

Harry donated one of his creations to the National Museum of Textiles here but as far as he knows it has not been displayed. That is another reason why he has converted his home into a museum. It is to introduce to people here as well as to those in the rest of the world to innovations taking place in contemporary Indonesia in the field of arts, handicrafts and other arts. On the second floor, adjoining a terrace garden, he has carved out a cozy niche for regularly scheduled classical music soirees with guest performers from here and abroad.

What he is unable to do is to design clothes and produce them in bulk. Since individuals are unique, he prefers to think of a different design for different people. The result is that no "Darsono" design can be found duplicated anywhere.

Walking behind Harry as he played museum tour guide, it was difficult to believe that a child who was dyslexic and suffered from attention deficiency disorder has blossomed into a renaissance man of such style and fine demeanor.

The fifth child of eight in his family, Harry was once forced to change schools six times in one year in Surabaya, the capital of East Java where he spent his early childhood.

Concerned at his abominable behavior and lack of interest in reading or writing, Harry's parents packed him off to a boarding school in Paris when he was 9. Later he moved to England where he studied clothing technology at the London College of Fashion and at the London Film and Television Academy for Stage Production.

He is lucky to have been surrounded by adults who did not demoralize him but helped him to find his mooring in life. For it is the arts that inspire Harry most today -- "I'm still very hyper but not aggressive" -- and he works tirelessly to help others find out what they really wish to do by offering lessons in embroidery. It is just in case someone like the young Harry is also interested in sewing up a costume or two -- and, into the bargain, hemming together their life.

Museum Harry Darsono, Jl. Cilandak Tengah 1/71, South Jakarta. Viewings by appointment (tel. 7668553).