New fashion center aims at style and substance

New fashion center aims at style and substance

JAKARTA (JP): The Indotex LaSalle Documentation Center of
Indonesian Fashion was inaugurated yesterday to help give local
employees the expertise they need to succeed in the textile,
garment and fashion industries.

Director General of the Ministry of Trade and Industry Dodi
Supardi, who officially inaugurated the center on behalf of the
Minister of Trade and Industry Mohamad (Bob) Hasan, said the
center would help the nation increase employment in the local
textile industry.

The economic crisis has cut a swathe through the formerly
booming garment and textile industry, with at least 300,000
workers dismissed in recent months. Businesswoman and designer
Poppy Dharsono said the textile sector currently employed 1.2
million workers nationwide.

The documentation center, located at LaSalle International
College, Gedung Pusat Niaga, Central Jakarta, houses hundreds of
books and journals on fashion, textiles, design and business
administration. It also has a Dupont-Lycra Fabric Room of more
than 2,000 fabrics and an IBM internet center,

"In these difficult times, we need more local people to enter
the textile industry ... we cannot afford expatriates at this
point," Dodi said.

"This will not only help students of the LaSalle college, but
will help others in the textile, garment and fashion industry to
refine their skills in specific areas of the trade."

The college is a partnership between the Indonesian Textile
Association, the Canadian-based LaSalle College Group and the
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Poppy Dharsono, a shareholder in the documentation center and
LaSalle College, said the four-room center will help in refining
the export quality of garments and textiles.

"Even though our exports of textiles and garments are good, we
need to improve on the quality and expand on the kinds of local
garments, design and textiles that can be exported," Poppy said.

The director general of the Indotex LaSalle College and
Documentation Center, Jean Giguere, said hundreds of small and
medium enterprises contributed fabrics of about 8,000 motifs for
the Dupont-Lycra Fabric Room.

"This will help people who visit the center to get better
knowledge of, for instance, a pattern or motif from Sulawesi 300
years ago."

More than 400 members yarn and fabric producers of the
Indonesian Textile Association contributed to the fabric Room,
according to the director general of the association, Irwandy
Muslim Amin.

Following the inauguration, representatives of the Private
Enterprise Participation (PEP) Project, a CIDA bilaterally funded
project in partnership with the Ministry of Cooperatives and
Small Enterprises and the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (KADIN), explained how Canadian expertise in technology
and management could lend a hand to small and medium enterprises.

Project manager Tim Reynolds said the project helped small and
medium enterprises with specifics already set by the Ministry of
Cooperatives and Small Enterprises.

"Small ones are those making less than Rp 1 billion in sales
annually, and those having less that Rp 200 million in assets.
Medium enterprises are those making less than Rp 5 billion in
sales," Reynolds said.

Assistant project manager Mariana Soengkono said help would be
extended in technical and training assistance, not funds.

"We can give seminars on management and marketing strategies
at an ailing company and also, for instance, detailed help with
the accounting department," she said.

"We could also give one-on-one individual training." (ylt)