Oscar Lawalata making strides in fashion world
By Chris Brummitt
JAKARTA (JP): Tall, skinny and wearing an orange cotton blouse with matching scarf, black velvet jacket and dark-blue flared jeans, clothing designer Oscar Lawalata turns heads as he walks quickly through Tuesday's lunchtime crowds in Plaza Senayan.
Suddenly, a woman rushes up to greet him (kisses on both cheeks, dramatic hugs) rips off his jacket and tries it on. Two minutes later she slips him Rp 300,000 as a down payment on a similar jacket, only smaller. An incident that confirms what all the evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, suggests: here is a 22- year-old man doing something right.
When asked about the secret of this success he answers straightaway and only half-jokingly: "Me".
His trademarks are on display in his collection on sale at the Sogo department store. Natural fibers combine with manmade ones, Southeast Asian influences with the latest from the fashion houses of Europe. There are men's party shirts with pockets where you wouldn't expect them; skimpy female tops in exotic materials; and flowing dresses with kimono-inspired cummerbunds, lacey trims and matching jackets. "I always present something simple, yet with a new or different flourish," he says.
Oscar works out of a two-story house in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, the interior of which he designed himself. His team of tailors occupies the ground floor. The second has a skylight running the length of the ceiling, white walls and is where his assistant works and limited retail activities take place. To one side is his design area, which is also bright and white, and aside from a large desk at one end, there is little cluttering its minimalism.
His skin is strikingly pale, candle-white is how someone described it, which he puts down to an exotic lineage of Ambonese-Javanese-Manadoese. At the age of three he moved to Jakarta, where he has lived ever since. Two years later his father left his mother, the comedy actress Reggie Lawalata, him and his brother, and Oscar has only seen him once since.
He dropped out of a Jakarta fashion school after one and half years, using the money he would have spent on course fees as the investment to start his own fashion house. Making clothes for friends led to orders from video producers and artists and then the public at large.
Coming second in an international design competition in Singapore last year confirmed his growing reputation, something he concedes is important in the fickle world of fashion, though he says: "If you are yourself then your reputation comes automatically".
When he speaks, it is in a very soft, almost delicate way. He confesses that when at school he was often the victim of playground taunts that made him quiet and shy -- traits that are still evident today.
How do the clothes get designed? "The customer comes to me and tells me what he or she wants -- dynamic or sexy or whatever. After that, the design is up to me. I sit in my room and wait for inspiration. My only provision is that I have to see the material first."
He said his inspiration came jointly from foreign magazines, designers and Indonesian ethnic dress; his prize-winning design in Singapore was based on the traditional South Sulawesi bodo motif. At the moment he reckons the balance between the two lies at "70 percent foreign, 30 percent local", a figure that "will maybe change, though it will take some time".
He is not one to kowtow to the whims of pretentious and self- important artists. "I can't suck up to them and am no good at small talk, even though my mum tells me I have to." His business has reached the stage where he can say to people: "If you want it, buy it. If you don't, don't."
He's not really involved in the business side of his two labels, OscarOscar and OscarLawalata, and is unable to answer how much money either makes. "My mum is my accountant," he says. The monetary crisis has had an effect upon it -- though not on demand however, which keeps on rising, but on the cost of materials.
In his resume he writes that his "Future Plan" is to bring "Indonesia's name in the fashion world industry (sic) through her richness in cultural diversity which has not been well exposed and developed yet." An ambition that seems at odds with his confession when looking around his studio that "whatever I ever wanted I have already."
He continues, "I am bored with Jakarta. I know everything so there is no challenge left anymore." He mulls the ideas of going to India to look for materials or starting college somewhere as possible remedies. Failing that he says he will "just go with the flow".
For the record, his tips for this season are "natural fibers with 1970s hippy styles and a bit of disco. There has defiantly been a move away from all the silver high-tech millennium stuff. And be yourself." And he has some good news for people wanting to look presentable for less than Rp 100,000. "Just choose some materials and go to a street-side tailor." Though it comes with a catch: "Of course, you have to be able to choose what would look good and where".