Get London for success

Syahmedi Dean, Contributor/Jakarta

Only a few local people in a big city like Jakarta can readily mention the names of fashion designers or fashion brand names from London. To change all that, the British Embassy in Jakarta and Glamour Inc. have brought ten young fashion designers from London to be introduced in Jakarta.

Why are British designers yet to be the leaders in the international fashion arena? In fact, the British Fashion Council has since 1983 held the biannual London Fashion Week, in which international fashion editors are invited to Britain. Unfortunately, there is yet to be a fashion designer from London that is a household name for ordinary people here; in the same way as the names Prada, Versace and Giorgio Armani from Milan or Chanel, Dior, YSL and Louis Vuitton from Paris roll of the tongue. On the other hand, London celebrities expected to be able to jack up London's reputation in the fashion world seem to lean more to Italian designers. Victoria Beckham and Naomi Campbell, for example, are very fond of Dolce & Gabanna, while Elizabeth Hurley often dons dresses designed by Versace. Then Britain's No. 1 celebrity, Kate Moss, has enjoyed greater fame because her clothing comes from Christian Dior, a fashion house in Paris. All this means that British designers have failed to make it to center stage of the fashion business.

Indeed, there are some quite famous names on the list of "the London's kids" such as John Galliano, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Matthew Williamson, but they have all left London to make a career as prestigious designers in Paris or New York. They have made news in the fashion media. The achievement made by these four London designers shows that Britain actually has its own significant contribution to the success of super famous fashion brands.

Therefore, a consistent promotional event must be held to ensure that there will be regeneration with British fashion designers or prevent John Galliano and Alexander McQueen from being the last British citizens that have enjoyed fame in the world's fashion arena. Hence, the British government's intensive efforts to introduce other new designers to fashion lovers. One of these efforts is to organize the Best of British (BOB) Trunk Exhibition, the result of cooperation between the trade section of the British Embassy and Glamour Inc., an event organizer from London. BOB presents the works of ten British potential designers in a trunk show, or a presentation in a limited space. These young designers are Ana Mika, Aei Kei, Ashley Isham, Body Amr, Belle & Bunty, Harriets Muse, Mr. & Mrs. Macleod, Manish Arora, Fab & Joe, Pazuki and Soniya Mirchandani.

"These are famous names in London's fashion circle. They have a lot of experience working in a number of fashion houses in Paris and they may hope to be great designers in the future. They have gained recognition for their ideas to trigger a new fashion trend," said Nin Choong-Wilkins, the BOB coordinator, about the designers presented this time. Nin appeared alone during the presentation without the presence of a trade section officer from the British Embassy.

The works of these ten designers in this BOB looked safe and polite. Body Amr's design, for example, gave a total feminine and decent look despite an attempt to appear sexy. Then the design under the label of Belle & Bunty, which stole attention as it was made of a fabric with a colorful abstract floral motif, was quite modest as summer dress gowns usually go. The collection of these ten designers gave a slowing down impression compared with the works of British designers in general, which, aside from being usually experimental in nature with a strong street look and pop culture impression, can usually succeed in turning an extreme fantasy into reality.

The BOB presentation was held at the Mulia Hotel in Jakarta on Oct. 21. Later the presentation will go to Singapore, Bangkok and Taiwan. This presentation could actually be quite an interesting opportunity and the right moment for the Indonesian media to get acquainted with British fashion designers. Unfortunately, contrary to what was promised in the invitation to the media, not a single BOB designer was present during the presentation. In fact, one of the reasons why reporters came to the presentation was to meet and interview these BOB designers.