Sunday, May 26, 2013

Designers Take Priceless ‘Tenun’ into New Light


Five prominent fashion designers collaborated with Cita Tenun Indonesia to give a fresh, new look to tenun woven fabric for the Jakarta Fashion and Food Festival.

The designers — Sebastian Gunawan, , Priyo Oktaviano, Denny Wirawan and Didi Budiardjo — displayed 34 creations at the show, which was opened by an ultra-feminine collection that used the plain woven cloth from the West Java town of Garut.

Eight of Sebastian’s creations were inspired by a woman’s age of innocence, as shown through the piece that used a burgundy lace material with the traditional textile and its unique flower and leaf motifs. 

A green mini dress with a cute floral adornment around the neck area and flowery embroidery on the bottom seam was complemented by a bandana with a similar pattern and color.

Sebastian then presented a simple knee-length dress with a top designed like a kebaya traditional blouse, accentuating the mixture of old and new.

Another creation came in a classic cut knee-length red and green dress, with elbow-length sleeves; a graceful look for a gala dinner.

The second collection on the catwalk was by , the man behind the rising Major Minor ready-to-wear brand at London’s Harvey Nichols department store. 

In the show, he played with songket fabrics embroidered with gold or silver threads from Central Lombok, giving the creations his signature edgy and punk look.

“The motifs are in pine and pineapple shapes, ornamented with belts of geometric motifs. The basic color of my collection is black but the motifs are mostly colorful in an effort to make it more marketable,” said Ari.

He also used leather and applied origami-inspired pleats in his creations, something he may have learned from Major Minor’s experience: that the international market prefers simple cut atelier in friendly colors. 

Nevertheless, Ari did not forget to keep the authentic and beautiful colorful Indonesian fabrics in his eight designs, which came in the forms of an oversized mini dress; blouse and trousers; A-line and sleeveless mini dress and two elegant knee-length dresses.

Balinese’s endek woven textiles were the focus of designer Priyo Oktaviano in his Black Paradise collection, which was thick with the dark ambiance of Eastern enchantment. 

“Seventy percent of the collection is in black, with the addition of grey and red. I use endek with its geometric motif for this ready-to-wear collection that strongly applies the mix-and-match principle,” Priyo says. 

Priyo, who came up with six outfits for women and three for men, surprised the crowd when a male model stepped out wearing a turban, a Middle East fashion-driven top with tail and no pants; a strong essence of glam-rock meets Eastern ethnicity feel emanated the show.

“Journey from The Highest” was the theme of Denny Wiryawan’s Balijava breathtaking collection that used Sobaki Tolaki woven cloth from Konawe district and the Buton woven fabric from Buton Muna district — all from Southeast Sulawesi.

He immediately won the audience’s heart with his eight exclusive creations.

Inspired by Tibet, Denny translated this muse it into his collection through a simple-cut long jacket, a knee-length inner dress and a fedora hat — all with purple as a base color and other complementary palette choices. 

Denny was also in love with synthetic fur, as he applied it on the jackets and hats.

The big gong was when two models walked in and posed together in epic long, all-covering gowns and unique headpieces, which were likely inspired by Asian traditional ateliers.

As the closing collection, Didi Budiardjo presented nine creations, inspired by various tribes in Sambas, the origin of the woven cloths he used.

His collection represented the Tionghoa, Dayak and Malay tribes that inspired his designs.

Didi’s began with simple two-piece looks; comprised of short-sleeve blouse and pants, as well as long-sleeve blouse and pants.

Later, Didi also offered more wearable choices of two rather simple sleeveless long dresses, as well as glamorous dresses, using a colorful palette of purple, blue, orange to pink.

“In Sambas, such clothing is known as lunggi — and I’d like to popularize the term,” said Didi.

— Photos by R. Berto Wedhatama

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