Young Designers Contest stuns audience

Young Designers Contest stuns audience

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): The hip brigade has landed and immersed itself
among Indonesia's fashion students. At the 1995 Indonesian Young
Designers Contest last Friday, the audience was given an
unexpected education on the newest version of cool.

Dressing cool will require a fiery attitude. Plastic pants and
sheer slips. Platform combat boots and high heels perched on
wooden bulbs. A man in a lace bodysuit with see-through pajamas.
These are not images for the demure and the humble. The theme is
the future, and if the designers have their way, we will be
living the X-rated version of the Jetsons.

But the next millennium is potent inspiration for the young
and hopeful. Many of the nine contestants produced excellent
collections, containing humor, commerciality, and innovation.
Their hard work was directed towards the two winning prizes,
which entitle not only cash reward but also entry to the ASEAN
Young Designers Contest in Singapore. The ASEAN competition, to
be held on Sept. 20, is coveted for its S$5000 prize as well as
the scholarship to California's Fashion Institute of Design and
Merchandising.

This year's first-prize winner should feel doubly confident in
Singapore, because she also won the "Favorite Designer" award
from the audience. For her Charlie-Chaplin-inspired designs, 23
year-old Jakartan Elizabeth S. Wijaya will be representing
Indonesia at the regional forum.

Second-place winner Yongki Budi Sutisna, also from Jakarta,
will also represent Indonesia at the ASEAN competition. His
space-age casual wear, however, may shock observers expecting
batiks and ikats from Indonesia's designers. Indonesian designers
may at last be moving away from the now over-exposed ethnic wear.

In fact, this year's collections showed little allegiance to
traditional textiles, with some exception. The designs of
Jakarta-based Lia Pailangan boasted an Irian Jaya theme, but
strained to make the connection between the Asmat motifs, which
haphazardously decorated tee-shirts and pockets, and her urban-
inspired silhouettes. A male model wearing Pailangan's copper-
colored suits waved about an Asmat shield as if heading towards a
cricket pitch. If it's a joke, it's a poor one. Yet unintended
mockery is a pitfall many Indonesian designers often stumble
over, mostly due to a shallow understanding of the traditions
they appropriate.

Fashion anarchy

But why look thousands of miles away for unfamiliar tribes
when the tribes of urban youth are just as exotic? Indonesian
youth culture is abandoning its staid school uniform and heeding
the cue of worldwide fashion anarchy. Browse through the city's
shopping malls and inevitably a platinum-haired teen in bondage
gear will growl past. Body-piercing -- nose, lip, belly button,
private parts, whichever will make your mother scream the most --
is becoming as essential as applying lipstick. One of this year's
contestants, 17-year-old Astianty Namiera, smirked sheepishly
onstage under her green tuft of hair. The punk movement may be
nearly twenty years old, but its repercussions in this country
are only being felt now.

It was there in the superb designs of Yongki Sutisna. With a
basic palette of fire-engine red, stark white, and cool navy,
Yongki produced a clean collection of workwear-inspired
ensembles. Vinyl jackets were slimly tapered, and trousers took
on a sailor's pleatless cut. T-shirts sported traffic signs,
although it would take only one of his see-through plastic
dresses to stop traffic. Of particular wearability was a
diagonally-striped black-and-white skirt paired with a
windbreaker and fitted white cardigan.

Designs

What distinguished Yongki's designs from the others was the
sleekness of the outlines. Diaz Charullah's Charlie-Chaplin-
themed collection and Tris Setiawan's 1990s aristocrats, for
example, struggled too hard to be "designer", and in the end
looked too trendy. Too many complicated pieces and too many knee-
high socks tend to effect this impression.

Some other silhouettes also repeated themselves to exhaustion.
Particularly popular are spaghetti-strings winding round all the
waiflike waists, A-line miniskirts, and cropped tops. Never has
the Jakarta Hilton International's Ballroom witnessed so many
bare belly buttons! It is also debatable if the Ballroom had ever
seen the nearly-indescribable combat clothes of Astianty Namiera,
complete with heavy padlocked chains. Office-wear meant padded
skirts in frosted pastels. If these are clothes to invade Jupiter
in, they'd surrender!

In comparison, the winning designs seemed straight out of a
nunnery. On prints of gray or yellow checks, Wijaya sculpted
peacoats and pinafores. On sinuous silks and satins, she
imprinted images of Charlie Chaplin. Her patterns are clever, and
the effect is elegant. However, the whole collection seemed a bit
too cute, too kitsch. Director of the Indonesian Fashion
Designers Council Sjamsidar Isa contends the theme is not that
important.

"One of our old winners, Taruna, once won with a clown theme.
Wijaya's collection is salable piece by piece, and that's what's
important," said Sjamsidar.

Last year's winner utilized traditional embroidery arts as
well as traditional Indonesian silhouettes in his collection.
Should there not be a traditional element in this year's entry at
the ASEAN competition?

Sjamsidar again disagrees. "If the designer can use Indonesian
traditions befitting an international style, then of course we
would welcome it. But it is not necessary. The point is to create
a ready-to-wear collection," said Sjamsidar.

And a ready-to-wear collection is not cheap. The collection of
Elizabeth Wijaya purportedly cost Rp 7 million (US$2,626) to
produce. Usually, the collection that impresses most is also the
one that costs the most. Those fortunate enough to obtain
sponsorship, whether from other designers or from stores, are
able to feed their creativity with the necessary materials.

There are benefits to entering the competition, however. The
Indonesian Young Designers Contest is the only Indonesian
competition where senior designers give guidance weekly to their
junior counterparts, an experience not available elsewhere.
Also, Galleria Department Store, who collaborated with the
Indonesian Fashion Designers Council and Hai magazine in
organizing the event, will sell the works of the young designers
this month. The sales of the merchandise will not only gain a
bigger name for the young designers, but also help them pay for
their considerable production expenses.