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.