Mercedes seeks out young, unknown designers

Mercedes seeks out young, unknown designers

Syahmedi Dean, Contributor, Jakarta

Fashion contests are important for novices so that they can
introduce their creations to the fashion community and thereby
gain the attention of their seniors. Many established designers
started their careers by participating in contests.

Many such contests have been held in Indonesia, but only a
handful have shown good results, among others, Femina magazine
group's Fashion Designers Contest (LPM), Dewi magazine group's
Concours International de Jeunes Creature de Mode (CIDJCDM) and
the Indonesian Young Designer Contest (IYDC). Each of these
contests has contributed big names to today's fashion world in
Indonesia, for example Denny Wirawan and Priyo Oktaviano (LPM),
Abineri Ang and Rusly Tjohnardi (CIDJCDM) and Didi Budiardjo and
Taruna Kusmayadi (IYDC).

Besides these three prestigious contests, there is now another
one: the Mercedes-Benz Asia Fashion Award-Indonesia (MBAFA-
Indonesia), which seeks to select novice designers to be sent to
a higher-level venue in Singapore. The requirements set by the
organizing committee are very tight. The participants, who must
have a minimum two years and a maximum four years experience
working in the fashion business, are required not only to be able
to design but also to have a good grasp of fashion presentation,
pricing strategies, fashion trends and production systems. MBAFA,
which is in search of designers with "hidden" potential, offers
good opportunities to these novices to openly compete with
established professional designers.

Owing to these tight requirements, many candidates could not
make it at the administrative inspection stage. Only 15
candidates got to the semifinal and met the professional judges
on Thursday, Aug. 11, at Blowfish Resto & Lounge. They presented
their ideas to four internal judges, namely Sebastian Gunawan,
Didi Budiardjo and Tri Handoko, all representing Indonesia's
designers, and Muara Bagdja, a fashion observer.

As the contest focused on ready-to-wear dresses, the judges
also focused their judgment on dresses that were really ready to
wear. At this stage, seven semi-finalists could not go on
because, more than anything else, the dresses they had designed
were not ready-to-wear. They also failed because of a lack of
neatness in their workmanship and because of the great
discrepancy between their ideas and their designs.

"Many of the participants were too fantastic in their ideas;
they were not realistic. Their drawings were fantastic but the
realization of these ideas was shocking to us. Several
participants were good enough and showed strong concepts," said
Tri Handoko, one of the judges.

"In general, they have not yet got a good grasp of the
character of the materials they have chosen. Many of these
materials do not suit the character of their designs. We have
asked them to find better materials. Still, I'm optimistic about
this year's participants, particularly those sending in their
men's collection," said Didi Budiardjo, who shared this idea with
the other judges.

The MBAFA final will be held on Sept. 23, 2005 as the top
event in the Mercedes-Benz Jakarta Fashion Week. The finalists
are Ari Yandhi, Billy Cong, Maya Ekasinta, Padmo Gardjito, Puspa
Yenty, Tex Saverio Gunawan, Vindy Vandana and Yudhi Mulyawan.

"I don't know how I can find time to translate these designs
into reality later," said Tex Saverio, one of the finalists,
shaking his head. Tex has sent in his design called Dualism and
is somewhat worried about how to allocate his time because in
September he will also have to compete in the final of LPM 2005,
a fashion contest held by the Femina Group.