Discounted luxury -- for those who can afford it

Discounted luxury -- for those who can afford it

By Juliane Gunardono

JAKARTA (JP): Entering Plaza Indonesia is like entering a
spaceship. There are no signs of the cosmos of Jakarta street
life, no sweaty people who have just squeezed themselves out of
an overfilled city bus, no sidewalk vendors, nobody wearing
sandals or dirty shirts, no bad smells, no rush and no noise.

Plaza Indonesia, located in the heart of the metropolis, is a
sparkling, clean and elegant spaceship, moving smoothly through
time, and unlike the places outside, this little universe unto
itself does not seem to be hit by the economic crisis.

Usually on weekdays, the great halls of the shopping center
seem to be quite empty, with only a few people, in clothes so
expensive that they do not show the labels, walking slowly from
one gleaming, shiny, golden styled shop to another, where they
can read only the most popular names of the best clothing
enterprises in Europe and the United States.

And now, in the time after Christmas and New Year but before
the end of Ramadhan, they can also read something else. All the
shops have put up signs like: Up to 75 percent sale; Lebaran big
sale up to 60 percent; or Selamat Idul Fitri! Sale 50-75 percent.

That means, a jacket made in Italy, at Missoni Uomo is now
"only" Rp 2,657,000 instead of about Rp 4 million; or a pair of
red and white trousers from last season's collection costs Rp
445,000 instead of nearly Rp 2 million. And Alfred Dunhill sells
shirts as "cheap" as Rp 600,350 instead of about Rp 1.2 million.

Does this implosion of prices mean that the shops where the
wealthy people buy their clothes also struggle against bankruptcy
and trying to attract customers by dumping prices?

"No", said one of the shop attendants of Missoni Uomo, and
"no" say those of other shops like the Lucy House or Boss.

"This is the usual sale in January, when the new collection
comes in. We have a discount like this every year. We sell just
as much as before the crisis," an attendant said.

Most customers at Plaza Indonesia shops are indigenous
Indonesians, Chinese-Indonesians and Japanese. But of course,
there are also many other foreigners.

All shop attendants interviewed by The Jakarta Post said that
the number of customers has decreased between 30 percent and 50
percent since the beginning of the monetary crises. In most
cases, it is because a lot of wealthy people, part of who are
Chinese-Indonesians, have left the country, and a lot of banks,
where their former customers used to work, have been closed down.

To attract more customers, the shops lower the prices and give
higher discounts than usual. "There are still a lot of people who
can afford our clothes, although we are more expensive than the
shops abroad," said one attendant. "Only most of our customers
come in the evening now, because they don't want people to know
they are still rich."

The situation is about the same at Plaza Senayan in South
Jakarta. Like at Plaza Indonesia, there are hardly any people
buying something. Most of them just window shop or eat at the
food court, which costs between Rp 10,000 and Rp 30,000 for a
meal.

"But that's usual," explained an employee of a boutique
selling American products. "Most of our customers buy their
clothes for Christmas or the New Year, because they have parties
or travel abroad." In spite of all the Idul Fitri decorations, he
said, at the end of Ramadhan it is always quiet.

The shop, like most of the others, seems not to be in danger
of having to close down.

"We only had some difficulties when the U.S. dollar was about
Rp 17,000 (in January 1998) and the clothes got very expensive,"
he said. Now that the dollar has fallen below Rp 8,000, the
clothes have become "cheap" again.

A shirt, for example, that used to cost over Rp 400,000 when
the dollar was high, is now Rp 245,000.

Before the crisis hit the country in mid 1997, the currency
rate was Rp 2,300 per dollar.

The wage of the attendants, though, is still not enough to buy
one of these "cheap" shirts. One employee said he only earns
about Rp 200,000 a month.

"Sometimes I feel queer, when people buy four or five shirts
only as a present, so they tell me," he said. "The crisis doesn't
seem to have any effect on their life!"

Employees of another boutique have the same impression: "There
are a few rich people who are victims of the crises, too. But
even when our clothes were very expensive because of the high
dollar rate, there were still a lot of people who could afford
them."

Everything is different at Pondok Indah Mall, also in South
Jakarta. Pondok Indah Mall, once a spaceship only for the upper-
class, is now a common shopping center for the middle class. The
place is crowded with people in ordinary shirts and trousers,
their children who have come along to play, and teenagers --
foreign and Indonesian. The average customer in Pondok Indah Mall
spends between Rp 50,000 and Rp 250,000 for one piece of
clothing. Shops like Alma and even ELLE, which sell clothes
around this price, have nearly no loss of costumers since the
crises. In this mall, life is getting hard only for upper-class
shops like Boutique Rumours, which used to sell clothes for
between Rp 1 million and Rp 4 million, including, for example,
leather belts for about Rp. 3,200,000 each.

On their door, there is a sign stating: Closing down up to 80
discount.

"That doesn't mean we want to close down all the way," said an
attendant. "The management remains the same, but we need a new
strategy because we have lost about 60 percent of our customers.
After reopening, we will sell clothes for between Rp 200,000 and
Rp 300,000 only."