Hemlines? It's the bottom line that counts in 1997

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): Devaluation, bankruptcies, layoffs and investor flight; it's a strange time to be talking about clothes.

But for a microcosm of the economic crisis afflicting the nation, Indonesia's fashion industry is a perfect model.

The biggest fashion story this year isn't about hemlines -- mini or midi? -- but about bottom lines and maintaining cash flow during the credit crunch.

Luxury boutiques and even mid-priced retailers are paying for consumers now saving their pennies (literally, considering the current exchange rate) after a two-year shopping binge.

In November, sales, affected by inflated prices, had plummeted by 30 percent, or the same rate as rupiah depreciation.

The boom of recent years -- which saw the building of upscale malls like Plaza Senayan, the opening of suburban emporiums like Lippo Karawaci, and the planning of an "Orchard-Road" shopping row in Central Jakarta -- has become an explosion of debt.

Mall rents, hedged in dollars, are rising (a good-sized store cost upwards of US$10,000), but not revenue.

As Dewi Moran, whose PT Mahagaya Perdana sells Prada, Hugo Boss and Escada among other luxury brands, explains, "Everything is dropping -- sales, customer visits, profits."

Baclom January when Iwan Tirta's lush batiks were paraded at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, and Karl Lagerfeld's spokesperson Kristina Zeller visited Jakarta, few could have guessed that this business of looking good would not look as good in a recession.

Sunny spring

The spring season also gave little hint of the downturns to come, as the Fashion Cafe staged weekly fashion shows spotlighting both international and domestic designers.

In fact, the arrival of this brainchild of the supers (that's Claudia, Naomi, Elle and Christy), and its mall-situated cousin La Moda Cafe in Plaza Indonesia, meant that there were more shows than ever, as retailers and fashion hounds alike found a meeting ground under the Fashion Cafe's three-meter-tall red stilleto.

The grand five-course fashion galas at luxury hotels, it seemed, were becoming too dated (Joan Collins, after all, is in semi-retirement) or perhaps too expensive.

Instead local designers like Poppy Darsono and Musa saved up their money and went to France, where they visited linen factories with the French Linen Promotion Board.

Linen, the board said, is ideal for the tropics, but not easily found in Indonesia, a deficiency they were determined to change.

Hopes in the industry were still riding high in April, when Oscar de la Renta, with his Indonesian manufacturing partner PT Great River Industries, opened yet another boutique in Singapore.

Journalists were flown in to meet the dapper Dominican, who visited Jakarta the year before, and to watch a fashion show at the Ritz Carlton. The event showed confidence that money thrown at designers will boomerang back in profits.

And retailers no longer open new shops with simple ribbon cutting ceremonies.

May's opening of the nostalgic Original Levi's Store at Plaza Senayan included covering a nearby pedestrian bridge in Levi's jeans!

Levi's is preparing for greater competition from brands newly arrived in Indonesia's market like Soviet, Girbaud and Big Star.

In June, extravagance found patrons in bridal designer Kim Thong, who staged an astounding show complete with a male model naked save for a white loincloth and wings on his back, and Harry Dharsono, who designed the remarkable costumes for a celebrated stage production of Julius Caesar.

Theater suits the eccentric Dharsono well -- the layered and spiky costumes took a little getting used to, but theatrical they definitely were.

Style hounds with a more muted sense of shape and color took comfort elsewhere, like the Vera Wang shows at Glamourette boutique.

Wang's marketing staff, who came from New York for the event, received a positive reception, but admitted they were testing a market more conservative than other Asian countries.

It's good the shows weren't held in July, when the rupiah first fell, and in August, when the central bank let it float.

By then, hints of worry among retailers were starting to surface. Sale signs became a permanent fixture on some shop windows, and socialites inked their diaries with fashion events.

Plaza Indonesia, for example, celebrated French and Italian fashion in two separate promotional evenings.

Some expansions took place regardless of the economic climate. In August, Arkansas-born Helen Gurley Brown launched the Indonesian version of her controversial magazine, Cosmopolitan.

Setuagenarian Brown was confident Indonesia was ready for a publication saluting sexual liberation for women.

Forlorn fall

Whether the market will prove Brown right remains to be seen, as Kosmopolitan is still in its infancy.

Women's magazine Femina, however, is a mature player, celebrating its 25 years in the business the following month.

They toasted their humble beginnings and ensuing expansion -- Femina now has four sister magazines; Dewi, Gadis, Ayahbunda, and Sartika -- with an outdoor fireworks-lit gala at that Senayan athletic compound.

Sparks literally flew that September evening, as they also did soon after at Hotel Shangri-La's French Haute Couture extravaganza.

The glamorous show featured the collections of Christian Lacroix, Givenchy, Nina Ricci and Jean Louis Scherrer. It was not the first time Indonesian audiences feasted on the cutting-cloth mastery of Bernard Perris (designing for Scherrer), but it was their first peek at the talents of Givenchy's enfant terrible designer, Alexander McQueen.

Finally, they got a peek at what all the fuss was about -- sharp tailoring, gravity-defying drapery and fresh takes on old silhouettes.

The couture show seemed to be the last hurrah this year for international brand names.

The Spotlight UK fashion show in October tried to boost confidence in imported goods, but British retailers like River Island admitted they were worried that Southeast Asia's monetary crisis would hurt the region's purchasing power, especially its capacity to buy the strong British pound.

So importers are cutting down on orders -- the Indonesian Importers Association said imports have gone down 60 percent since August and many license holders will likely halve their orders this season and next.

But where importers are losing ground, local manufacturers are trying to gain a foothold.

Renowned local designer Ghea Panggabean, for example, kept busy while the rupiah crashed. Ghea again showed her keen eye for "ethnic" fabrics, in September working with traditional Indian textiles, then interpreting the new polyesters of textile giant Texmaco in her signature East-meets-West style.

Ghea's colleague Biyan, also in the Texmaco show, joined her in efforts to crack a market dominated by international names. In September, Biyan chose Singapore as his stage.

Curiously, however, Biyan, a perennial favorite among local fashion followers, was absent at both Fashion Parade 1997 -- whose precedent was last year's wildly successful Fashion Week, which hoped to launch Jakarta as Asia's next fashion capital -- and the annual trend show of the Indonesian Fashion Designer's Council.

Focusing on local talent was also the aim of the international Batik Conference held in Yogyakarta in November.

Indonesia exports $70 million worth of batik annually, but its economic potential outstrips it current value.

The problem is batik is now such an industry standard that some motifs are patented overseas, where property rights are highly valued.

That means Indonesians sometimes, by law, can't export their batiks to particular countries.

For example, Cirebon-based batikmaker Tomik cannot sell his batiks in Japan because the patterns he uses are mass produced and patented there.

The batik copyright debacle may be another impediment for local designers struggling to make a name for themselves not only overseas, but even at home.

The recession, after all, can partly be attributed to Indonesia's insatiable appetite for imports while leaving goods "Made in Indonesia" on the shelves.

Local designers have their weaknesses -- such as a talent for theatrics in place of diligence towards meeting retailers' orders -- but the market has also been unsupportive of its native sons and daughters.

For example, the city's malls have welcomed few local names as tenants, and until recently, cooperation between textile producers -- textiles is Indonesia's largest non-oil export -- and local designers was rare.

This is changing. For example, Tarumaprint 2000 is working with Indonesian designers like Carmanita and the House of Prajudi, and Texmaco recently launched a new line of polyesters designed by local designers Ghea, Biyan, and Poppy Darsono.

Poppy Darsono sees the current recession as a chance for cheaper locally produced garments to steal the spotlight. "It's time for Indonesian products to be bought by our people because we can afford it," she said. "It's time for designers to give supply to that demand, it's time to jump in."

Good advice for everyone. If designers jump in, boosting domestic and perhaps export revenue, they may just help give the economy the kick start it needs.