Reform in fashion

The fashion industry is apparently struggling for attention and customers. While there are undoubtedly some talented and inspired designers, I would like to address them from the consumer's point of view. This seems to be a trivial conversation in light of the current state of the nation, but maybe a metaphor will emerge... who knows.

Overseas fashion houses like County Road, Max Mara etc take pains to cut for all body shapes and sizes. They make everything from size 6 to 14. I am a woman who likes to wear good clothes, and who, while not being a batik junkie, also likes to wear the motifs of the nation in which she finds herself. When I go to try on some filmy number in lavender and gray in Seibu department store, I find (even when the garment is labeled XL), that the bust darts rise to meet my collar bone, the armholes are cut so high that to survive I have to impersonate a high-voltage pylon. Inevitably breathing apparatus is required as Indonesian clothes are made for women with chests like Kalimantan plywood labeled "Made in Australia from Sustainable Plantation Timber" and bums like skate boards.

This singular inattention to the fact that other anthropmetric configurations exist both within and without Indonesia seems to have escaped the pattern cutters. That this may actually hinder the ability of Indonesians to get to see beyond the idealized but unreal feminine market is clear to us with Gina Lollobrigida curves. While Indonesia, and Jakarta in particular, is full of every white males wet dream in black Lycra, such women age and spread also. And they grow rich, get gold cards and want to spend money. So sack or retrain your pattern designers and let's have reform in fashion.

MELODY KEMP

Ubud, Bali