Designer Sebastian calls to mind jet set glamor

Designer Sebastian calls to mind jet set glamor

By Tuti Gintini

JAKARTA (JP): All designers want above all to find the right
textiles to showcase their creations. Unfortunately, not all of
them are fortunate to find the fabrics that fit.

Yet Sebastian Gunawan, 33, during the Night and Day fashion
show at the Mulia Hotel last week, was at least able to show an
example of the ideal.

The dozens of dresses designed by him are made from luxurious
textiles taken from the collections of international fashion
houses, including Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino and Nina Ricci,
all of which are supplied by the Alta Mode textile boutique.

Sebastian, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Design and
Merchandising in Los Angeles (1986-1988) and the Instituto
Artistico Abbigliamento Marangoni, Milan, Italy (1989-1991), has
long been famed as a luxury-line designer.

The costume arranger of last year's Miss Julie theatrical show
at Taman Ismail Marzuki Arts Center is a Jakarta high-class
designer who puts weight on the luxuriousness of textiles and the
cut of dresses, together with an aura of glamor.

Like classic aristocratic European ladies, he loves to
manifest elegance, but he introduces such changes as are
necessary for Indonesia. He discards unnecessary little
embellishments and rids the dresses of "overlaps" and "swells" in
order that they may be more practical for eastern women to wear.

Sebastian's first show was staged in 1995, followed by the
birth of Votum, the second-line collection, and it was then that
the fashion-conscious public came to value him as a distinguished
designer with a particular character. Sebastian is supported by
his wife Christina, an Italian designer.

During the show 110 dresses were displayed by 37 models in
front of hundreds of fashion enthusiasts and observers, including
First Lady Sinta Nuriyah Abdurrahman Wahid. The show was like a
procession of white clouds in a blue sky filled with rainbow-
colored lines.

The real beauty of Sebastian's works springs neither from the
various cuts of his designs nor from the luxurious textiles used.
Most important of all, it is attributable to neat and precise
cutting. Or as Carmanita, Sebastian's fellow designer, put it,
Sebastian is superior thanks to his ability to add the finishing
touch.

"In fact, a perfect design depends 90 percent on its finishing
touch, and Sebastian is one of the few Indonesia designers
capable of doing it well," said Carmanita during the interval.

Regarding the theme of the Night and Day Show, Sebastian
explained that it did not refer to the time divisions in everyday
human life, but rather to the course taken during a sustainable
creative process. His designs revealed an outburst of ceaseless
creative energy as if summoned by the many textiles he chose.

Sebastian tried to recreate the aura of the beautiful and
elegant jet-setters of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He
acknowledged the extravagant fashion styles of the eras were his
inspirational references, which were then flavored with a modern
touch to create a glamorous impression. The impression is not
only brought about by the quality of the textiles but also by the
results of his collaboration with The Heliopolis, an accessories
boutique known as a supplier of the famous Swarovski crystal
beads.

For the creation of one of his dresses, Sebastian imagined it
would be worn by a figure present among the guests attending a
friend's wedding party in the grounds of an exotic villa in
Morocco. She would be wearing a backless black velvet dress with
an A-silhouette, ornamented by floral-styled crystals and black
plastic tufts dangling and glittering in the rear.

For another dress, he imagined his figure attending a
nighttime party hosted by a baron in a chalet. Under the fur
coat, she wears a strapless dress ornamented with tassels, beads
and crystals, her undergown enhanced with layers of long ruffles,
continually moving, following her elegant steps.

Working on gown ornaments like tassels, beads, crystals and
layers of ruffles is indeed a complicated job, but it is what
Carmanita meant by the finishing touch.