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."