Contemporary Indonesian Fashion: Through the Looking Glass 9781350061309, 9781350061330, 9781350061316

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CONTEMPORARY INDONESIAN FASHION

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Dress and Fashion Research Series Editor: Joanne B. Eicher, Regents’ Professor, University of Minnesota, USA Advisory Board: Vandana Bhandari, National Institute of Fashion Technology, India Steeve Buckridge, Grand Valley State University, USA Hazel Clark, Parsons, The New School of Design, New York, USA Peter McNeil, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Toby Slade, University of Tokyo, Japan Bobbie Sumberg, International Museum of Folk Art, Santa Fe, USA Emma Tarlo, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK Lou Taylor, University of Brighton, UK Karen Tranberg Hansen, Northwestern University, USA Feng Zhao, The Silk Museum, Hangzhou, China The bold Dress and Fashion Research series is an outlet for high-quality, in-depth scholarly research on previously overlooked topics and new approaches. Showcasing challenging and courageous work on fashion and dress, each book in this interdisciplinary series focuses on a specific theme or area of the world that has been hitherto under-researched, instigating new debates and bringing new information and analysis to the fore. Dedicated to publishing the best research from leading scholars and innovative rising stars, the works will be grounded in fashion studies, history, anthropology, sociology, and gender studies. ISSN: 2053–3926 Previously published in the Series: Moroccan Fashion, Angela M. Jansen Modern Fashion Traditions, Angela M. Jansen and Jennifer Craik (eds.) Fashioning Memory, Heike Jenss Advertising Menswear, Paul Jobling Fashioning Identity, Maria Mackinney-Valentin Islam, Faith, and Fashion, Magdalena Cra˘ciun Inside the Royal Wardrobe, Kate Strasdin Peacock Revolution, Daniel Delis Hill Fashioning Brazil, Elizabeth Kutesko Fashion, Agency, and Empowerment, Annette Lynch and Katalin Medvedev (eds.)

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CONTEMPORARY INDONESIAN FASHION Through the Looking Glass

ALESSANDRA LOPEZ Y ROYO

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BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 Copyright © Alessandra Lopez y Royo, 2020 Alessandra Lopez y Royo has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on pp. xii–xiv constitute an extension of this copyright page. Series design: Untitled Cover image: [front] Designer Auguste Soesastro with model and muse Paquita Widjaja. (© Denny Tjan. Courtesy Prestige Indonesia); [back] Architectural wedding gown by Auguste Soesastro, Kraton couture. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: ePDF: eBook: XML:

978-1-3500-6130-9 978-1-3500-6131-6 978-1-3500-6132-3 978-1-3500-6133-0

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The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. William Makepeace Thackeray

This book is dedicated to all the elegant, stylish, and witty women and men of this world—my own late mother among them.

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CONTENTS

List of illustrations ix Acknowledgments xii Note on spelling xv About the author xvi Prologue xvii

PART ONE INDONESIAN CHIC PAST AND PRESENT 1 1 A brief history of fashion in Indonesia PART TWO PRESENTING FASHION

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2 Performing fashion: Fashion weeks, fashion events, fashion-as-art 23 3 “Made in Indonesia” for the global stage PART THREE MEDIATING FASHION

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4 Fashion in print and online: Digitalizing beauty and style 85 PART FOUR CONSUMING FASHION

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5 Visiting malls and buying online: Shopping for style 109 vii

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CONTENTS

6 Wearing clothes, styling the self: Indonesian women and fashion 127 Epilogue Notes 149 Bibliography 193 Index 205

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ILLUSTRATIONS (Pages 62–81)

(When the photographer’s name and/or provenance is not given, photos are my own.) 1.

At Ghea Fashion Studio, Menteng atelier, 2015.

2.

Janna Soekasah Joesoef with children Janina and Javana for Ghea Kids, Sumba Collection 2018. Photo courtesy Ghea Fashion Studio.

3.

Ghea Panggabean, Societa’ Umanitaria Fashion Show, Milan, Gringsing Bali Collection 2013. Model: Advina. Photo courtesy Ghea Fashion Studio.

4.

Thirtieth anniversary of Ghea Panggabean. Jumputan Pelangi Bali Collection 2010. Model: Wiwied Muljana. Photo courtesy Ghea Fashion Studio.

5.

Ghea Panggabean’s eponymous antique pelangi bought in Bali at the start of her career.

6.

Le Cirque de Sebastian collection, Sebastian Gunawan. Photo by Peter Tjahjadi, courtesy Sebastian Gunawan, 2018.

7.

A hijaber at ID.FW15. Photo by Toni Garbasso, courtesy Toni Garbasso, 2015.

8.

A group of hijaber fashionistas at ID.FW15. Photo by Toni Garbasso, courtesy Toni Garbasso.

9.

At the October 2015 Biyan’s Trunk Show, Jakarta.

10.

A fitting at Tri Handoko’s atelier before the IPMI Trend Show 2016, November 2015, Jakarta.

11.

Models for Obin pretending to take a selfie at JFW16, Jakarta 2015.

12.

An original late 1970s Iwan Tirta couture piece, Private Collection, Jakarta, 2018.

13.

One of Prajudi’s 1970s creations. Private Collection, Jakarta, 2018.

14.

An original Iwan Tirta batik cloth, Jakarta. Private Collection, 2018.

15.

Clothes exhibition, Sejauh Mata, Plaza Indonesia, Jakarta, 2015. ix

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ILLUSTRATIONS

16.

Models taking selfies (for real) at the end of Anne Avantie’s show, ID.FW18, March 2018, Jakarta.

17.

A gown by Sebastian Gunawan. Photo by Peter Tjahjadi, courtesy Sebastian Gunawan, 2018.

18.

Another gown by Sebastian Gunawan. Photo by Peter Tjahjadi, courtesy Sebastian Gunawan, 2018.

19.

Details of the intricate decoration in the gown in photo 18. Photo courtesy Sebastian Gunawan, 2018.

20.

One of Tri Handoko’s creations. Models: Ajeng Svastiari and Kusuma Wardhany. Photographer: Babam Bramaditia. Accessories: Rinaldy A. Yunardi. Photo courtesy Tri Handoko.

21.

A piece from the 2015 Martha Ellen collection modeled by Hannah Al Rashid. Photo by Ryerson Anselmo, courtesy Martha Ellen.

22.

Timeless Beauty poster. Courtesy Alien Production SAS.

23.

Supermodel Sara Stockbridge in the Grey Model Agency launch campaign, “Am I Grey?” Photo: Paul Spencer, courtesy Grey Model Agency.

24.

Supermodel Sara Stockbridge in the Grey Model Agency launch campaign, “Am I Grey?” Photo: Paul Spencer, courtesy Grey Model Agency.

25.

Bridal collection, Tri Handoko, IPMI Trend Show 2019, installation.

26.

Mel Ahyar, IPMI Trend Show 2019, installation.

27.

A cup from Sebastian Gunawan’s Arcadia tableware collection, November 2018. Like other designers, Sebastian Gunawan has also branched out into lifestyle with tableware.

28.

A model at the Biyan Studio 133 show for JD.id, November 6, 2018.

29.

Another model at the Biyan Studio 133 show for JD.id, November 6, 2018.

30.

Tri Handoko’s show, Fashion Nation 2018, Senayan City, April 2018.

31.

Indigo Exhibition, Ghea for IPMI, Senayan City, April 2018.

32.

Poppy Dharsono, models and well-wishers at the close of her show at ID.FW18.

33.

Fashion Link billboard at Senayan City, March 2018.

34.

A traditional dancer in an elaborate costume wearing platform shoes greets visitors at ID.FW18.

35.

Security at the entrance of ID.FW18, Jakarta, March 2018.

36.

The erstwhile Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem, April 2018.

ILLUSTRATIONS

37.

A street performer in Old Batavia, Jakarta, November 2015.

38.

Old Batavia, Jakarta Renovation Project, November 2015.

39.

Inside the famous Café Batavia, favorite location of many fashion photo shoots, with a series of photo-portraits of all its celebrity customers. Jakarta, November 2015.

40.

High-rise buildings in contemporary Jakarta, March 2018.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am very grateful to ASEASUK/British Academy for their generous funding of my field trip to Indonesia in 2015; to my Indonesian research counterpart, the Faculty of Art and Design at Institut Kesenian Jakarta (IKJ) and its staff; to Dr. Véronique de Groot, Director, and all the staff at École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), Jakarta, for their gracious academic hospitality and assistance in Autumn 2015; to the erstwhile Centre for Media Studies, now the Centre for Global Media and Communications, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and Dr. Dina Matar, its Director, for awarding me a Research Associateship from 2013 to 2017. I am also grateful to the Head of the School of Arts at SOAS, Professor Anna Contadini, for a further Research Associateship that saw me through the writing of the first draft of this book from 2017 to 2018. I thank Rebecca Valentine, owner and MD of Grey Model Agency (or “Grey”), including the Grey Collective, of which I am part, for her encouragement of me, as a “model-with-personality,” a writer, and a fashion activist. Grey is a model and creative talent agency with a mission to stimulate changes in perceptions of aging in contemporary fashion and advertising. Its impact on all my work, as a model, a writer, a speaker, and an activist, has been notable. A big thank you is due to my former student Dr. Helly Minarti, who welcomed me back in Jakarta in 2015 and 2018, and put me in touch with a great many people working in the field of fashion and art. I am also very grateful to Amna W. Kusumo, former Director of Kelola, who was very generous in sharing her fashion contacts when I first arrived in Jakarta in 2015. I profusely thank Svida Alisjahbana, CEO of the Femina Group and driving force of Jakarta Fashion Week (JFW), without whom I would have found it rather difficult to orient myself in the maze of Indonesian fashion and the events connected with it. I particularly thank her for giving me access to JFW16 and also to the Femina archive, not yet open to the general public, when I visited Jakarta in March to April 2018. I am equally deeply grateful to Poppy Dharsono, designer and also President of Indonesia Fashion Week (ID.FW) for inviting me to give a talk about my research at ID.FW18, and for providing me with invites to all the shows, and to my discussant, designer Musa Widyatmojo, for welcoming me at ID.FW18. xii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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I am very grateful to all the designers I met in Indonesia who gave me their time and opened their homes and workshops to me, especially Ghea Panggabean (and her twin daughters Amanda and Janna), who offered her friendship unstintingly, and very patiently answered hundreds of questions. Similarly, Tri Handoko Joewono, Auguste Soesastro, Debora Mettu, Susanna Perini, Sebastian Gunawan and his wife Cristina Panarese, Martha Ellen, and many, many more. I thank Julia Suryakusuma, writer, journalist, and one-time model and muse, for helping me out with several of my queries, and Hannah Al Rashid, a star in every sense of the word—our conversations in London when I first dreamt up this project were food for thought. I have enjoyed watching her blossom into a fine actor, having known her since she was a little girl. I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Emeritus Mark Hobart, SOAS, and his Balinese dancer wife Ni Madé Pujawati for their suggestions and continued friendship over the years, and to Professor Matthew Cohen of Royal Holloway, University of London, who has been supportive of my project from inception. I am very grateful to Michela Magrì, former Director of the Italian Institute of Culture in Jakarta, for her encouragement and friendship. Thanks are also due to Mariska Febriyani and Brenda Susanto Masden at the Kemang Dance Center, Jakarta. It was a pleasure for me to do ballet classes with you both, it really helped me to take my mind off things when I needed it. In the UK, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to All Walks Beyond the Catwalk. All Walks began its activities in 2009, headed by fashion commentator and former TV personality Caryn Franklin, now Professor of Diversity at Kingston University, Surrey, in conjunction with communications expert and psychotherapist Debra Bourne and supermodel and muse Erin O’Connor. All Walks has raised awareness among the public of issues of body image, educating the fashion designers of tomorrow, and encouraging them to embrace diversity and acknowledge difference in their creative approach. Students on fashion design courses, through the educational work of All Walks, have been inspired to make clothes for real people, modeled by women and men from a range of ethnic backgrounds who can represent the whole gamut of contemporary, global consumers. My experience as a member of All Walks has been an eye-opener and has shaped my thinking. I thank the team for welcoming me. I am also very grateful to Professor Carolyn Mair, leader of the first ever Masters programme in the Psychology of Fashion, whom I met at the “Mirror, Mirror” conference on representations of aging held at the London College of Fashion (LCF), University of the Arts, in the autumn of 2013. Through my interaction with Professor Mair and my attendance at the “Better Lives” lecture series at LCF, which she curated from its inception in 2013 until 2016, I became more familiar with positive psychology and how it can be applied to fashion, fostering a newer perception of the self and one’s well-being. I subsequently collaborated with the organization

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Age of No Retirement, whose vision of “a world where our age does not define us,” fully resonated with my own desire to subvert ageist stereotypes.1 The number of people, from all walks of life, who assisted me throughout this endeavor by giving me their time and advice, and without whom neither the research nor the book could have been completed, is truly bewildering. I bear an enormous debt of gratitude to all who helped me in the preparatory stages of my research trip, and those I met in Indonesia while carrying out my research in situ and then later, back in London, when I was writing up. I will refrain from compiling a very long list of names and risk leaving someone out by sheer momentary forgetfulness, but I thank each and every one from the bottom of my heart. All of you who have crossed paths with me and helped me one way or another to give shape to this book, please be assured that I am deeply grateful for what you have done for me, especially when I asked you to listen while I rehearsed my arguments or when I asked to use your photographs. Thank you for being there! I do, however, have to mention Bianca Cimiotta Lami from Accademia Koefia, Rome, Italy for her sustained friendship and advice. While writing this book I discovered the London Library in St. James’s Square, of which I became a member. Through it I had access to several online resources and books that proved invaluable. I mention this because I found myself out on a limb after July 2018 when my SOAS account was deactivated, which meant I was barred from accessing e-resources on- and off-site, because of the complex licensing regulations currently in place. I solved the problem by combining membership of different libraries—necessity is truly the mother of invention. The British Library was always my last resort when all else failed. To Frances Arnold and Yvonne Thouroude at Bloomsbury Academic, thank you so very much for being there—I could not have managed without you—and to the awe-inspiring Joanne Eicher, thank you for taking on this title as part of the series “Dress and Fashion Research.” I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewer that provided a helpful critique of my first draft, giving me pointers for revision. Your advice was graciously given and gratefully received. Finally, my greatest thanks go out to you, my readers, whoever and wherever you are. I hope you will enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it, even though at times, faced with a number of problems which I thought were insurmountable, I just wanted to walk away from it. This book is definitely not the last word on contemporary Indonesian fashion, it is barely the beginning of a conversation. I just hope my efforts will encourage you to find things out for yourself. I am on Twitter and Instagram, and am always available for constructive comments and suggestions. My handle for both is @alexb244, so do contact me if you so desire. Alessandra “Alex B.” Lopez y Royo

London, January 15, 2019

NOTE ON SPELLING

Throughout the book I follow contemporary Bahasa Indonesia spellings except for personal names, which I write as their bearers do. I do not change the spelling in quotations, thus Suharto may be Soeharto and Sukarno may appear as Soekarno, “oe” being a Dutch diphthong that conveys the English sound “oo.” Before the standardization of Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta was known as “Djakarta” and, again, this may be reflected in the spelling adopted by the authors I quote and the time of their writing.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alessandra Lopez y Royo, aka “Alex B.” is an academic, a fashion activist, and a fashion model. With a PhD from SOAS, University of London, Alessandra was an academic in post for more than twenty years, becoming in 2007 a Reader at the University of Roehampton, London. She originally specialized in the visual arts and performance practices of Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, and also, to an extent, South Asia, and taught and carried out interdisciplinary research in this area, building a considerable body of work The author with Darell Ferhostan, modeling Tri Handoko. Photo by Hakim Satriyo, courtesy Tri and receiving a number of Handoko. prestigious research awards and two research fellowships at the University of Oxford. Her academic interest in fashion was prompted by reading about psychology and fashion, and by her own fortuitous involvement in fashion modeling, which led her to perform a careful balancing act with her career as an academic, finally resigning to engage more fully in fashion activism to change perceptions of age and beauty. She returned to Indonesia as a researcher in Autumn 2015, with a fellowship awarded by ASEASUK/British Academy and tenable at EFEO, Jakarta branch, to write about contemporary Indonesian fashion. As a model-who-writes, Alessandra is represented by Grey Model Agency, London, with the name Alex Bruni. xvi

PROLOGUE

The “great couturier manqué” syndrome Contemporary Indonesian fashion . . . why Indonesia? It is a question that has been put to me countless times over the past few years. I shall try to answer it succinctly, weeding out in the process a few misconceptions and stereotypes. Ask people at random, in any Western country, what they know about Indonesian fashion. Those who have traveled to Indonesia will tend to conflate fashion with textile craftsmanship and extol the exquisite beauty of the batik (wax-resist dyed cloth) from Java or the handwoven brocades, especially Sumatran songket or the tenun ikat (handwoven cloth) produced with many permutations throughout the archipelago. Some will go as far as saying, unabashedly, that fashion as such in Indonesia is just “Western” because Indonesian women—as also men—mostly wear, whenever they can, “traditional clothing,” namely kain or sarong, the long rectangular cloth covering the lower part of the body and tied at the waist (the sarong is actually stitched at the front to form a kind of tube to make it easier to hold it in place when tucked in) and kebaya, a long-sleeved blouse worn exclusively by women. People committed to subverting patterns of exploitative clothing consumption might mention that the clothes sold by many major fashion brands, with a mix of luxury and high street labels, are made in Indonesia by Indonesian workers paid a lower wage than elsewhere and with little concern for conservation. Indeed, among such people, some may even be familiar with the name of Purwakarta, in West Java, where one of the largest viscose manufacturing plants of the world is located, discussed in two damning reports issued by the Changing Markets Foundation, and identified as being the primary cause of severe pollution to the local environment and communities.1 Some Indonesian designers have achieved international recognition, e.g. Rinaldy A. Yunardi for American lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret—Yunardi also designed the accessories worn by pop star queen Madonna at the Met Gala in 2018. Yet only a handful of people will be able to name designers and competently discuss trends,2 apart from referring to hijab fashion, which is rapidly becoming, in the West, a signifier of contemporary Indonesian fashion, following the acclaim xvii

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received at New York Fashion Week (NYFW) 2016 and again, in 2017, by Anniesa Hasibuan3 who presented a collection that appealed to an international Muslim consumer base. Gross misinterpretations can easily arise where unfamiliarity prevails. According to the Business of Fashion (BoF), a multilingual online resource with a global following aimed at fashion professionals, in 2017 Indonesia was among the “top ten textile and garment exporters.” BoF also noted that “the Indonesian government has set the target to increase the nation’s value of exported textile and apparel to $75 billion by the year 2030, meaning that it would reach 5 percent share in the global market.”4 Figures released by the Creative Economy Agency and the Central Bureau of Statistics–Indonesia (BPS) in 2016 reveal that the creative economy sector in Indonesia grew by 62.07 percent from 2010 to 2015 and fashion contributed 56.27 percent to that growth.5 In a nutshell, if one is interested in fashion and fashion studies, Indonesia makes an important case study; if one is already interested in Indonesia, they ought to add fashion to the list of Indonesian cultural activities they may wish to know more about. Indonesia has the world’s fourth largest population, and the world’s largest population of Muslims. It is acknowledged as a rising economic power and fashion is one of its biggest and fastest growing industries. Thus, ignoring Indonesian fashion is no longer an option, not at a time when fashion is global and experienced as a global phenomenon. Truly, Indonesian contemporary fashion seems all set to conquer the globe with “explosive energy.”6 I shall develop my argument of why we should care about Indonesian fashion more forcefully throughout the book, but I shall now backtrack to provide a narrative of how I became involved in Indonesian fashion and how I came to write this book in which I tell the story of contemporary Indonesian fashion through my own experience of it, bringing together the observed and the observer, personal reflection, and cultural analysis. In 2013 I was at a crossroads. Until then I had held a senior lecturing position, juggling my teaching and research commitments as a visual culture and Asian performance specialist, with a new work activity as an occasional, agencysigned model. I had begun modeling in 2006 quite by chance and mostly for fun; at first work was rather sporadic, though it injected some excitement in the humdrum of my life. But then, unexpectedly, it turned into a career, increasingly more demanding timewise, with its routine of obligatory casting attendance and photo shoots, often clashing with times and days when I was meant to be tutoring my students. It became clear I had to make a choice between lecturing and modeling. The agency that represented me at the time dealt mostly with commercial and lifestyle bookings, which when I began was the staple for older models like me, but I was also put forward for fashion editorial and/or beauty shoots if there was a request.

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Older models have become a little more visible in fashion only in more recent years. The extraordinary success enjoyed by someone such as Accidental Icon (aka Professor Lyn Slater), discovered at age 63; Maye Musk, now just over 70, both in the US; and Ukrainian Larisa Mikhalstova, 66, discovered at age 63, one of the BBC 100 Women of 2018, is rather significant. Earlier, older models only made intermittent appearances and brands would definitely prefer older celebrities to be their models when needing an older person in their commercials, fearful they might otherwise be losing their customer base. I enjoyed modeling and it also provided me with a way to explore the world of fashion, which intrigued me. I quit teaching to focus on modeling full-time but I also resolved to do more writing. Some friends and acquaintances, prophets of doom, thought I was rather mad. Why leave a secure job for what might be a hand-to-mouth existence? Clearly, they did not believe I could be successful! Alongside modeling I blogged, not seeking any sponsorship7 because I wanted to be free to write about what I was interested in, rather than constantly having to endorse products (but I occasionally do that through my Instagram account, I try to keep it balanced). I also penned the occasional article as a fashion activist, for online and print magazines, having become increasingly more aware of the need for a massive overhaul of age stereotypes and of a radical change in the way older women and men are represented in fashion and advertising, globally.8 With some publications, such as the The Guardian, a major British newspaper, I can claim to have both written and modeled for their weekly fashion section.9 As my critical engagement with fashion and advertising grew, I also started to take notice of Asian-made fashion and the growing presence of a large number of Asian fashion students and alumni at internationally renowned establishments such as Central Saint Martins, now a college of the University of the Arts, with a tradition for training diverse design talent who have gone on to define fashion, such as the late Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, British-Turkish Cypriot Hussein Chalayan and, more recently, South Korean born Soojin Lee. I became aware of the existence of “fringe” fashion weeks in London, such as Asia Fashion Week and Africa Fashion Week, with international designers and exhibitors, and of organizations such as London Ethnic, now renamed London Organic, set up to promote the talent of London independent designers, often from BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) backgrounds, aiming to support “Made in Britain.” I even participated in a few such events as a model and attendee.10 I also became aware of the increasing number of models from Asia, especially India, who might not be “perceived as ‘the prettiest’ by the Western-centric standards that dominate the fashion market,” as stated by editor of Vogue India Bandana Tewari,11 but who are definitely being regularly booked for jobs. In other words, I noticed some shifts, perhaps not seismic, but still important, and an all-pervasive Asian presence in fashion.

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I began to question the entrenched ethnocentrism in fashion discourses—it seemed to me that even when it attempted to critique fashion biases, the focus of much writing was on fashion as intrinsically belonging to the Western world and, paradoxically, only affecting those men and women who live in Western countries. The talent of fashion designers coming from Asia and Africa, often exoticized, only seemed to be acknowledged if they made London, New York, or Paris their home and base, and presented their work there, thus becoming part of the Western fashion establishment. Fashion developments in the non-Western world tend to be cursorily written about outside academic circles, sometimes with a degree of condescension, rarely with any depth. The idea that everything modern and subversive is derivative when coming from outside Europe and America is all enduring and certainly not confined to fashion alone. Writing about Indian art modernism, for example, art historian Partha Mitter talks of the “Picasso manqué syndrome” pointing to the “problematic relationship between non-Western artists and the international avant-garde, which is enmeshed in a complex discourse of authority, hierarchy and power.”12 I would say that there is indeed a fashion equivalent of such a syndrome that underlies a firmly established notion of non-Western designers merely copying Western fashion “greats,” or of possessing the craftsmanship but lacking the “creative genius” that distinguishes the renowned couturiers of Euro-American fashion. I am not displaying great originality in my remarks. Sandra Niessen already wrote in 2003 that fashion scholarship, like art history, assumes that significant and dynamic developments only occur in the West, whereas elsewhere—the rest of the world, that is—dress is understood to be locked in a timeless tradition and fashion barely exists.13

Grey woman in Indonesia Asia has figured prominently in my life since my twenties. I moved to Britain to study when I was not yet twenty, after a short stay in France. I backpacked in South and Southeast Asia and, captivated by the cultures I encountered, I quit my modern languages degree and enrolled at SOAS, University of London, subsequently returning to pursue a PhD. Maximizing my Asian experience and expertise, becoming an academic was the next logical step. Throughout my academic career most of my research focused on various aspects of the arts and performance practices of Indonesia, and to a lesser extent, India. I traveled quite extensively when I was doing my PhD research, which involved visiting archaeological sites in Java and comparing them with eastern Indian ones of a similar period. My research at the time was on the dance and ritual performances depicted in the bas-reliefs of ancient Javanese HinduBuddhist temples, such as Prambanan and Borobudur.14 Later, when I began

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teaching, I developed more contemporary research interests, but always to do with art and performance, which regularly took me back to Indonesia, albeit for short periods of time. Even in those days, despite my obsession with the magnificent Javanese temples and Javanese court dance performances, I was quite partial to clothes, and during my first field visit to Indonesia in 1989, I became enamoured of the gorgeous textiles of which this country is so rich. I bought batik, ikat, and songket cloths and attempted to style them on myself in non-traditional ways. On long journeys from one archaeological site to the other, often located in fairly remote areas, I would while away the hours leafing through women’s magazines, which I had purchased at bus stations. I would justify it as being a way to practice my Bahasa Indonesia. It was through the magazines that I became aware of the problems Indonesian women faced in terms of beauty and body image and what they perceived as their own inadequacies and shortcomings, as could be gleaned from the subtext of the topics explored in the beauty and editorial features in such magazines. Here I was, so many years later, a lecturer turned model, blogger, and fashion activist, wondering about Asian fashion, and not being able to find answers to any of my questions. I knew, for example, about model agencies sending young Eastern European girls, mostly newbies, to hone their modeling skills in Asian countries, Indonesia among them, following a mother-agency business model,15 and wanted to find out more. I knew about the made in Asia fast fashion—who did not, after the horrendous Rana Plaza Primark fire in Bangladesh?16 I knew about global fashion weeks—a mention of Seoul or Tokyo fashion weeks will sometimes crop up amid articles and reports, in the specialist press, about London, Paris, and New York fashion weeks. I also knew about Asian designers, a number of Indonesian ones among them, presenting their work in London, Paris, and New York, and wowing the fashion audiences who would regard them as purveyors of exoticism. I knew about Asian bloggers too, a great number of them, yet again, from Indonesia. All this knowledge was fragmented. I felt there were dots that needed joining. Thus, I once again decided to don my academic hat. I originally envisioned an ambitious large project, covering the whole of Southeast Asia, but I immediately had to scale it down and work on something way more modest, faced with the immense difficulty of securing funding and being just a lone researcher. I decided to focus on Indonesia because it was a territory with which I had some familiarity and thus it provided a good starting point, but also because, in the larger scheme of things, as I have already explained, contemporary Indonesian fashion is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored because of the size of the country and the sheer number of people involved in many capacities in this fast-growing industry. There was no book that provided an accessible introduction to the different facets of the fashion industry in Indonesia today, I simply could not find any, so I decided to write

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one myself. My Indonesian fashion project was my start-up, as Julian Kirchherr would say.17 I was awarded an ASEASUK/British Academy fellowship for three months only, tenable at EFEO, Jakarta branch. The Art and Design Department of Institut Kesenian Jakarta (IKJ) eventually agreed to be my Indonesian research counterpart. I welcomed this, as I needed the support of local professional experts to plan my field research more efficiently. I finally left for Jakarta on September 15, 2015, ready to immerse myself in my research work, my research visa having been authorized only in mid-August. My project would involve, among other things, attending JFW 2016, one of the largest fashion events in the country, due to take place in the third week of October 2015 and preceded by a scattering of smaller scale, but equally important, fashion gatherings and presentations. These included the pop-up retail Brightspot, brainchild of Anton Wirjono (DJ Anton), which brought together emerging labels selling directly to the general public.18 Before leaving for Indonesia, I had joined, as a “cult” model, the main board of a new London-based model agency, Grey Model Agency, with its Grey Collective, which gathers talent from the arts and the world of sport, including writers and a host of other creatives. Several model agencies, scattered in the US, the UK, various European countries, and Australia, now have a “classic” board, or a “lifestyle/real women” board with older “girls”—models tend to be referred to as girls, regardless of their age19—booked from time to time by casting directors for typically older person roles in commercials, charming older ladies, sometimes dressed in eccentric ways, advertising stair lifts or insurance of some sort, or advertising cosmetic surgery and botox fillers. But Grey, launched in May 2015 by Rebecca Valentine, a photographic agent who had been running a supporting artists agency as a sideline, was different, embracing a punkish irreverent aesthetic. It appealed to me and I was keen to be represented by them, because I wanted to model fashion and wanted to be known as a model-who-writes. From inception, Grey has had a unique outlook, aiming to put forward edgy looking, rather than “classic,” older male and female models, for jobs usually filled by younger models in fashion editorials, on runways, and in major campaigns, alongside younger models. Grey models also tend to be more than conventional models, they are articulate women and men often involved in public life, fashion activists, and influencers. The agency became internationally known almost overnight, making news for its unconventional approach and the talent it represented. The media exposure generated hundreds of applications from would-be-models from around the world, sparking off copy-cat initiatives and raising interest among clients in countries as far away as Brazil and South Korea. As a result, the agency secured some rather high-profile campaigns.20 Only the week before I flew to Jakarta in September 2015, I was part of a group of Grey models photographed for a prestigious editorial in Hunger, an independent

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fashion magazine, print and online, founded by British photographer Rankin, all of us wearing Prada.21 I mention these events as they would have an impact on my research. In Indonesia I was not only a researcher, I was also a Grey model, weird though it may have seemed to those I met. I continued to blog, often using my blog as a memory aid in conjunction with my personal notes. It was difficult and, ultimately pointless, to separate the two personas, academic researcher and model cum fashion activist. My modeling experience, my blogging, and my commitment as an activist to a more diverse fashion, came up all the time in conversation, and sometimes it helped me to connect more easily with the people I met and interviewed, although occasionally it did not. I even participated, as a model, in fashion events and photo shoots. I lived and experienced contemporary fashion in Indonesia as an academic researcher because of my training and my objective, but also as an “atypical” fashion model and activist,22 one belonging to a new breed of unconventional older, often silver-haired, models who, with their very presence, antithetical to commonly held beauty standards, have become instrumental to re-examining received ideas of beauty, style, age, and their representation in fashion and advertising. Modeling is an activity underpinned by the politics of representation, as defined by Stuart Hall in his seminal work.23 I returned to the UK in December 2015, continued my research online, and then went back to Indonesia in March 2018 to participate in the other major event in the Indonesian fashion calendar, ID.FW. I went to all the shows at ID.FW18 and also gave a talk, at the invitation of the President, Poppy Dharsono, on March 31, 2018, which led to an interview for The Jakarta Post.24 I discussed changing concepts of beauty in fashion, globally, asking how movements such as body positivity, the latter having considerably grown, not unproblematically, over the past decade, with various expressions online and offline,25 might be of relevance to Indonesian contemporary fashion. I also presented highlights from a ground-breaking documentary film, Timeless Beauty (2018), a Franco-Chinese production26 that is witness to the keen interest and active involvement of a burgeoning contemporary Chinese fashion in coming to grips with the challenges currently posed by restless consumers, worldwide, ill at ease with conventional fashion and beauty standards and demanding to be represented. The talk was a true eye-opener for me, making me aware, through the Q&A session, that though diversity in fashion seems to be a major concern at global level, it is also a concept that is locally inflected and it may not, necessarily, mean the same everywhere. In the Indonesian social imaginary, diversity appears to be primarily an issue pertaining to religious pluralism and, with a growing tendency, through the impact of “modest wear” to cover up, body diversity as such, among Indonesian women, becomes slightly less significant,27 the issue of what is sopan (“modest, appropriate, polite,” a word often used in connection with “modest wear”) in terms of clothing assuming far greater importance. I shall return to this at a later juncture, in Chapter four and in Chapter six, but I should mention that

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the body positivity movement is not absent in Indonesia. Its aim is to challenge the dominant idealization of slender, tall, and toned bodies. Advocating greater inclusivity and the acceptance of a range of body shapes and sizes is espoused by alternative magazines such as Magdalene, published online, with several articles aimed at critiquing and subverting established perceptions of “beauty standards.” As Indonesian women increasingly challenge preconceptions and orientalist constructs of femininity, we might witness a change in the imagery of mainstream Indonesian fashion magazines, reflecting local concerns and articulations, yet also keeping an eye on international trends. Once again, on the occasion of the 2018 visits—I also went briefly in October/ November 2018—I attended as many fashion events as I could possibly squeeze in, and participated in some, as I had done in 2015. I visited the Femina archives, had many conversations with designers and anyone involved in fashion, and tried to fill the gaps and tie up a few loose ends left over from my earlier research visits. As I began to write up, in the spring/summer of 2018, the case of Anniesa Hasibuan exploded internationally. A soi-disante designer, Anniesa Hasibuan was convicted in May 2018 for fraud and money laundering to eighteen years in jail, together with her husband, who is serving twenty years. From 2015 to 2017 she was hailed internationally as the number one “modest wear” designer in the world, a renown she achieved through pilfered looks and the payment of large amounts of money to show her collections. Through her story, which I narrate in due course, the double standards of the fashion industry, globally, come to light as do the “othering” and exoticization of non-Western fashion through Islamic or “modest wear.”28 The result of my research efforts is this book which contributes to an alternative theoretical framework that analyses fashion in a global perspective, and highlights the contradictions inherent in the global fashion discourse, as mirrored by Indonesian contemporary fashion. Ultimately, through this book, I question the deeply entrenched eurocentrism of “global fashion,” simultaneously interrogating current homogenizing beauty and body image discourses posited as universal, even while reclaiming diversity, by pointing to absences, silences, and erasures as reflected back by contemporary Indonesian fashion—hence the “looking glass” of the title, a magnifying glass of the ills of global fashion today.

Holding up the mirror: Contemporary Indonesian fashion and global fashion systems This book, then, is motivated by a desire to advance the field of fashion studies, reconsidering wider debates concerning global fashion and local markets, and

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including in such debates a further instance of scholarship on fashion in a “nonWestern” region, i.e. Indonesian fashion, which constitutes an important case study for the reasons I have already outlined. The main thread running through the book is the idea that Indonesian contemporary fashion can be held up as a mirror reflecting back and allowing a scrutiny of current globalizing and hegemonizing fashion and beauty discourses. In so doing, the book attempts to shift the fashion discourse from somewhat entrenched notions of a “centre” and “periphery” of fashion and of a “hierarchy of fashion capitals.”29 The extraordinary longevity of such notions has effectively held back the development of a more robust global fashion scholarship. Through a focus on Indonesian fashion, with all its complexities, I attempt to examine the extent to which fashion qua fashion can carry a critique of global capitalist trends, when “hyper-conformity,” a concept known from sociological theory and from Baudrillard in particular,30 is utilized as a mode of resistance, as seen for example—but not exclusively—in the growth of Indonesian hijab fashion (hijab being referred to as jilbab in Bahasa Indonesia, whereas those who wear it are often known as hijabers), underpinned by an element of subversion, as a number of researchers have noted.31 Having said that, I shall not, in this book, focus in any depth on hijab or “modest wear” (largely known in Indonesia as busana muslim, lit. Muslim or Islamic fashion, by which term I shall refer to it henceforth, even though Indonesians “in the know” are increasingly adopting the English term “modest wear”)32 nor about the media network that frames it, as this is, I believe, a separate topic. But it would be inconceivable to ignore its presence altogether, in view of the debate on the stricter Islamization of Indonesia, and also in view of the economic role of busana muslim, evident in the growth of revenue through exports of this kind of garments.33 In my hesitation to take busana muslim as fully representative of Indonesian fashion and Indonesian identity, I am echoing Jansen, who in her study of Moroccan fashion writes that “Muslim fashion is worn predominantly to emphasize a religious identity, whereas national fashion is worn to express a cultural identity, including a religious identity.” But, as I said earlier, it is impossible to ignore busana muslim in contemporary Indonesia and therefore I crossreference it, as many Indonesian designers, Muslim and non-Muslim, have an acclaimed line of busana muslim wear, alongside their “conventional” fashion— the latter being the term often used in Indonesia to denote fashion that is not busana muslim. A caveat should be inserted here. It is often taken for granted that Islam and a feminist subjectivity are incompatible, and that adopting busana muslim is a sign of conservatism and oppression. However, Rinaldo has pointed out that the construction of feminist subjectivities among Indonesian women is often underpinned by Islam, contrary to a widely held belief in Islam as a reactionary

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force.34 It cannot be emphasized enough that Islam in Indonesia has been practiced since the late fourteenth century CE and that one should not conflate the whole of Islam with Wahhabism, a conservative line of Islam from Saudi Arabia. Wanting “to wear” an Islamic identity, wanting to be sopan (even though how this is defined is still open to negotiation), is thus not necessarily a sign of male oppression and/or coercion.35 There are two main theme clusters in this book: (1) the making and performance of fashion and (2) the mediation and consumption of fashion. Their locales have been identified as the catwalk and the showroom, the magazines and online media, as well as the shopping malls and fashion e-commerce. Through a focus on these broader themes, my discussion of Indonesian contemporary fashion unfolds, covering a number of sub-themes, as these emerged throughout my research of 2015 and my further visits to Indonesia in 2018. JFW and ID.FW have been the focus of intensive research as the “fashion week” is understood to be, in Indonesia as elsewhere, a primary platform for the presentation of fashion, although not necessarily retaining the trade show connotations it had when it was first conceived. However, my research was not limited to a study of these events. It included observation, interviews, and direct participation in other fashion events—fashion shows seem to be happening all the time in Indonesia, they are regarded as a form of entertainment, often presented in conjunction with other performance modes—and meetings with designers (Indonesian and Indonesia-based foreign ones), fashion editors, bloggers and influencers, models, actresses, celebrities, entrepreneurs, casting directors, producers, film makers, photographers, makeup artists, and ordinary women and men.36 As a Grey model I participated, in Jakarta, in a prestigious annual fashion show, the IPMI 2016 Trend Show, for which I wore Tri Handoko’s designs, and I modeled for photo shoots, including two for clothing brand Saul, represented by Fashion Link, an initiative of JFW and the Femina Group. I also modeled for Ghea Panggabean in April 2018, at a private social event. Whenever I modeled I did it on a swap basis, with no monetary compensation, so that I would not break the conditions of my visa.37 My research continued to grow, even when I was not in Indonesia, as I gathered further material through “netnography” and the assiduous examination of social media, widely utilized by Indonesian fashion creatives. Readers will find in this work abundant references to previous studies in fashion and allied subjects whenever they were available and I deemed them to be pertinent, but I have also examined newspaper articles, online sources, and podcasts for more up-to-date information. Indonesia, as we enter the 2020s, is changing rapidly and since the start of the new millennium the Indonesian fashion system has been swiftly metamorphosing. I also deemed it important, for the integrity of my research, to corroborate statements made by my interviewees in conversation with me,

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comparing the views they expressed when they spoke with me with those reported in published interviews in online and print media, and often opting for the published version when quoting them. As mentioned, there are some sub-themes in this book and they can be identified as follows: (1) beauty and body image—this includes attitudes to aging, skin color, body size and shape, issues of self-esteem, diversity, gendering, the community and (2) design and the fashion industry—clothes, fabrics, production, sustainability, eco-design, marketing, fashion-as-art, identity markers, style and styling, individualism. They are discussed, in the appropriate context, in each chapter, interwoven with the main themes. In addition, I would like to point the reader to my impromptu observations, recorded as posts in my blog during my stay in Jakarta in 2015 and in 2018,38 and the many photos uploaded on my Instagram account and the Insta-accounts of many Indonesian fashion creatives, which provide visual support to the main research focus. I privilege the discussion of contemporary fashion as opposed to an in-depth account of fashion from earlier periods for a reason. I will elaborate on this further in Chapter one, my historical chapter, but, in a nutshell, I maintain that Indonesian fashion really came into its own in the post-reformasi period.39 Before reformasi it was subsumed under “colonial fashion” first, later merging with the eclectic influences of post-independence and then, under Suharto, it was consolidated into “national dress,” with the widespread adoption of batik as part of formal wear, as noted among others by Julia Suryakusuma and Heidi Boehlke.40 This does not mean that Indonesian designers were not active before 1998, on the contrary, all I am saying is that fashion really became a “creative industry” post-reformasi—it is now acknowledged as a creative industry at governmental level, through the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy. Much as I would love to, I am not able to contest the idea that the growth of Indonesian fashion has been the result of globalization and is a relatively recent phenomenon, because Indonesian fashion is, for the greater part, such a result. This does not prevent contemporary Indonesian fashion from taking on elements of resistance to those globalizing forces that have precipitously enabled it and does not detract from its specificity. The Indonesian fashion narrative is not linear and has not emerged as a single narrative. The global framework of a fashion discourse dictated by the European fashion system seems to encase Indonesian fashion, as I have encountered it, yet inflected in an Indonesian way. The descriptive categories I employ in this book are not arbitrarily imposed by me, they are part of the Indonesian fashion vocabulary and discourse—additionally, it should be noted that people in the Indonesian fashion industry and in fashion magazines often use a peculiar mingling of English and Bahasa Indonesia, a Bahasa campur (mixed), and I have respected this practice in the way I report conversations and with reference to articles.

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Throughout we can see how postcolonial mimicry comes into play in relation to fashion. As postcolonial theorists, from Fanon to Spivak and Homi Bhabha, have pointed out,41 subversion is encapsulated in mimicry and this seems to characterize contemporary Indonesian fashion, intertwined with a degree of ironic self-orientalizing and exoticization in the context of a liquid modernity.42 This too will become more apparent as the scrutiny of contemporary Indonesian fashion presses on in the pages that follow.

The personal, the cultural, and the political This examination of Indonesian contemporary fashion is intertwined with my personal reflections. I am a fashion activist. As such, I challenge current representations of older women in fashion and the media and I support the body positivity movement. This socio-political dimension is embedded in the frame(s) I adopt for the analysis and I state my position at the outset, for there is no such thing as complete neutrality in any interpretation that is proffered. Unsurprisingly, for someone who for years taught about performance, I sometimes deploy as an analytical tool the conceptual framework of “fashion as performance,” with reference to Schechner’s analysis of performance as individual and social behavior and as a personal and social interaction, into which fashion seems to fit rather well.43 This is not, however, my only frame of reference. The theoretical underpinnings of my research may not be immediately obvious—I am against ramming theory down the throat of readers who, I suspect, would rather unravel it as they go along, dipping in and out of the book, actively engaging with and taking apart the narration presented in the different chapters as they see fit. But such theoretical underpinnings are definitely present, constituting what I call the “invisible stitches” of my metaphorical garment and are unpicked in my Epilogue. Attentive readers will, however, be able to detect such underpinnings as they go through my chapters, and will be able to trace them back to an engagement, direct or indirect, and mediated by a plurality of commentating voices cited throughout, with those social and cultural theorists whose copious writings have shaped and redefined our approach to knowledge over the past sixty years. Thinkers such as Rancière, Barthes, Baudrillard, Foucault, Lefèbvre, Lipovetsky, Latour, Bourdieu, Kristeva, Butler—this is not a comprehensive list—and their work on culture, and also, especially in the case of Barthes, Bourdieu, and Lipovetsky, on fashion and allied subjects,44 have provided many a scholar of today with the tools to highlight the manner in which fashion (and not exclusively fashion) as an expression of culture, is shaped by discourse, and also has autonomous discursiveness. These intellectuals, with their invaluable theorizations, have been the dominant players of the social sciences and by extension, of fashion studies and a range of

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other “studies,” including the interdisciplinary fields of dance, performance, and visual culture studies I previously inhabited. In referring to their “intellectual dominance,” I am not brushing off their contribution. But social theory, to which we have recourse in order to understand fashion as a socio-cultural phenomenon, is never static, it is constantly enriched by a continuous, intertextual, Bakhtinian dialogue.45 Thus, wherever possible, I also draw on the work of other intellectuals who have engaged in specific case studies, largely related to contemporary culture and, by extension, fashion, which have an affinity and resonate with the terms of reference of my project. These women and men have, in their own distinctive way, provided the means to go beyond a certain inevitable eurocentrism lingering in the work of the above-mentioned thinkers, often drawing upon their theorizations but reviewing them further to engage more consistently with the specificity of Asian contemporary culture and Asian communities, wherever they may be found. Scholars such as Minh-ha T. Pham, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, and Ariel Heryanto are names that come to mind at this juncture, and they are by no means the only ones, others will be highlighted as the discussion progresses in the following chapters.46 We need to hear such voices if we care about fashion studies not ending up being inhibited by a stultifying theoretical conformity. I would not be able to discuss contemporary Indonesian fashion without relying on Indonesian studies scholarship when analyzing the context that has seen the rise and growth of fashion in Indonesia. Not a “hard core” Indonesianist myself, I genuinely appreciate the depth and range of the work produced over the years by those writers and intellectuals who can be regarded as being committed to Indonesia as their field of study and whose specialist knowledge is an unsurpassable gift to scholarship, with stalwarts such as Benedict Anderson, James Siegel, and Rudolph Mrázek among them.47 The work of historian Adrian Vickers was most helpful in the writing of Chapter one, but I have also benefited from the more recent analyses of Edward Aspinall, Thomas Pepinsky, Claudia Seise, and Carool Kersten, who have all shed new light on a range of historical, political, economic, and cultural issues relating to contemporary Indonesia.48 In parallel, the growing literature of fashion studies and global fashion, with which this book is in dialog, though not necessarily always in agreement, has also been taken into account.49 The field of global fashion studies is relatively new and far from homogeneous, representing a variety of approaches by virtue of being “studies,” thus among the scholars and intellectuals who work in fashion studies one will find a range of positions and approaches, the background of said scholars not being uniformly anthropological. Granted that multivocality and diversity are an ongoing concern of fashion studies as an interdisciplinary formation, one can point to a common thread and a shared focus, and that is a study of fashion as a cultural phenomenon in its multiple articulations, acknowledging its plurality. It remains mandatory that the uniqueness of each one of these articulations should be highlighted. In each context fashion cannot

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but be seen in relation with the specific regional and national culture by which it is subsumed, simultaneously being shaped by the contrasting demands of a global market economy. The crucial distinction between “dress” and “fashion” has, until recently, dominated fashion studies and risked causing a split among scholars. It seems to have been a commonly accepted notion, from inception, that fashion is a modern European invention and it was absent elsewhere until it was brought in by the Europeans. However, distinctions between dress and fashion are not neat and clear cut. As early as 1993 Jennifer Craik voiced the opinion that European fashion is only one of many and Joanne Entwistle noted the dangers of demarcating the realm of dress and fashion as separate, rather than overlapping.50 Belfanti also remarks that historically fashion cannot be considered to be an exclusive European invention, though he cautions that by “the nineteenth century, there was no other fashion than that established in Western society, which was then imposed on the rest of the world, relegating the other clothing traditions to particular niches.”51 Overall, I concur with Angela Jansen that the core of fashion studies continues to be largely eurocentric, despite a few lone voices, and the dress/fashion distinction is central to this profound bias. Jansen has written an incisive critique of the kernel idea of such a position, based on the perceived dichotomy between fashion and traditional dress, one seen as dynamic, the other static. By this token, says Jansen, fashion is understood to be Western and “associated with a market economy, urbanism and (Euro)modernity, while the non-west, an informal economy, rural and traditional, are associated with ethnic/traditional dress.”52 I shall not repeat here Jansen’s denunciation of the eurocentricity of fashion studies. Suffice it to say that her comment, based on Susan Kaiser’s work, that “a static Euromodern binary construct of traditional/ethnic/non-western versus modern/fashionable/western dress cannot capture the complexity of cultural identity construction,”53 fully underscores my own analysis.

Organization of the material and narrative style To help readers orient themselves, I will set out the structure of the book, with a summary of the chapters that follow. Part one opens with Chapter one, which recapitulates the history of fashion in Indonesia and highlights the socio-political dimension of the aesthetic of Indonesian fashion, positioning contemporary Indonesian fashion vis à vis an earlier, and distinct, “fashion in Indonesia.” The chapter illuminates the factors at play in post-reformasi Indonesia and, throughout, it references those studies that have sought to unravel Indonesian modernity and Indonesia’s socio-political

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choices, grappling, in contemporary times, with ongoing issues of Islamification and its impact on women, following the revolutionary thrust of the 1998 events. In Chapter two, which opens Part two of the book, focused on the presentation of fashion, I look at the performance of fashion, discussing fashion weeks, fashion events, and an emerging “fashion-as-art” concept, which is actually uncannily close to traditional understandings, within Indonesia, of performing arts and street entertainment. I pay attention to how Indonesian fashion design is currently presented within (and outside) Indonesia through the “fashion weeks” organized by powerful media groups, designer associations, and shopping malls, in receipt of government support and private sponsorship in varying degree. JFW and ID.FW, two of the major, somewhat contrasting, fashion events in the Indonesian fashion calendar, are my main focus. The search for alternatives to the rigidity of the “fashion week,” not limited to Indonesia, but very important in such a context, is noted. Thus, efforts at countering the “fashion week” are taken into account, exploring “non-mainstream” fashion events, as also the push towards realigning fashion with the arts, encouraging creative collaborations with visual and performing artists. In Chapter three I take a closer look at designers, the makers of fashion involved in the presentation and the overall performance of contemporary Indonesian fashion on the global stage. Mine is not and cannot be a comprehensive list. Through the designers I focus upon, selected for a number of contingent reasons, I aim to highlight a sample of diverse creatives, whose work may include busana muslim but is not defined by it. For this chapter, I draw on my own interviews and visits to showrooms, as also on published interviews. I address issues of production that the designers have to contend with, i.e. niche manufacturing and large-scale production, and the negotiations involved. I include in this discussion designers of foreign origin based in Indonesia, Bali in particular. The chapter ends with a discussion of Anniesa Hasibuan, as through her negative story of fraudster and money launderer, and the reinvention of herself as fashion designer jumping on the international “modest wear” bandwagon, her villain/victim status gives a sense of how open to exploitation young Indonesian designers are—and by extension, young designers from developing countries—through a fundamentally flawed global fashion system that thrives on greed and whose lifeblood is reliant on “expensive, hyper-focused advertising events,” as a friend commented on learning of Anniesa’s arrest. With Chapter four we are in Part three of the book, which is about the mediation of fashion, in conjunction with beauty and style. This is the chapter devoted to print and online magazines and the fashion, beauty, and style they tantalizingly propose as objects of desire to their readers. I look at how fashion is mediated and thus reconstituted, focusing on a few examples of “local” and “franchise” magazines. But I also consider those publications, such as the online Magdalene, that project themselves as an alternative to the prevailing gender

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ideology espoused by the more conventional magazines, be they print or online. The discussion then moves on to fashion, beauty, and style presented through social media, YouTube, and independent blogs, focusing more specifically on the initial impetus to subversion of fashion trends, and the assertion of individuality by the many bloggers/vloggers and influencers that inhabit the digital sphere, as also their gradual and eventual re-absorption within the hegemonic fashion system and discourse. Part four of the book, exploring the consumption of fashion, opens with Chapter five, which looks at shopping practices. Fashion in Indonesia cannot be understood without considering the shopping mall, which is where global luxury brands are sold alongside Indonesian fashion, and where fast fashion seems to dominate. Some malls in the capital set themselves up as arbiters of taste and very specific marketing policies are pursued, attempting to instill a sense of “individual style,” especially among female shoppers in the pursuit of a pleasurable “stylish femininity.”54 This chapter then moves on to look at the impact of online shopping on fashion retail, and at the peculiarly Indonesian consumer-oriented phenomenon of the jasa titip or jastip, which refers to an unregulated and informal shopping service. A note should be inserted here for those who might be wondering why in the part dealing with e-commerce my sources have been primarily articles in business-oriented publications and newspapers, mostly available online. Frustratingly, the greater part of the available literature on connectivity in Indonesia in books and peer-reviewed journal articles is unable to deal with the speed-oflight pace of contemporary developments. The collection of papers edited by Edwin Jurriëns and Ross Tapsell published in 2017 is an exception, with an invaluable account given by Bede Moore of his experience of working in Indonesia as a start-up entrepreneur.55 Chapter six is still part of the overall exploration of the consumption of fashion but it focuses on the wearers of fashion, reconnecting with the material presented in earlier chapters. I note here the construction of an ideal, aspirational urban wearer, assessing the impact of such notions on ordinary women’s selfperception and the realignment of the clothed female body with a constantly changing imaginary. I then discuss ideal fashion wearers—models, muses, and celebrities, all of whom impact ordinary women—as posited by a hegemonic discourse on beauty, and note a growing alternative tendency whose goal is a disruption of oppressive beauty standards. I conclude the chapter with a focus on fashion and the everyday,56 and highlight, as an area for further research, the specific impact of fashion on ordinary Indonesian women (and men). This is followed by a concluding chapter, my Epilogue, in which as one says, “all threads are gathered up,” a very apt metaphor in a book where clothes are discussed. Here I mention other possible areas of research in relation to the further inevitable omissions in my discussion of contemporary Indonesian

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fashion, such as cinema and TV, and fashion photography. I then reprise the theoretical underpinnings of this book, revealing, as I mentioned earlier, the invisible stitching in my metaphorical dress. This book is based on observations I gathered through a number of visits to Indonesia, recent and less recent, my interactions with the different “actors,” and my analyses, all interspersed with personal reflection. My style of narration does not quite conform to accepted narrative conventions of autoethnography, to which I am nevertheless indebted.57 I bring to my account an approach filtered through my lifelong engagement with performance and the visual arts, and my current experience as a model, and inevitably this marks me as “different.” I have also been greatly inspired by Kirchher’s notion of a “lean” research, and have tried to apply the concept to the way I have structured my project and the resulting book.58 Having a strong “I” presence in this Prologue, receding in the background when presenting the mise en scène and the “actors” and reappearing in the Epilogue as an “I,” taking on the role of analytic commentator, is a narrative device through which I foreground, at each step, the set of competing tendencies that have shaped contemporary Indonesian fashion. Ultimately, being able to convey the complexity of fashion in Indonesia, clearly and accessibly, to my readers, whom I envisage as being heterogeneous but unified by a genuine interest in global fashion, is what matters the most.

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INDONESIAN CHIC PAST AND PRESENT

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1 A BRIEF HISTORY OF FASHION IN INDONESIA Indonesian dress through time: Pre-colonial and colonial period I begin my discussion of contemporary Indonesian fashion trying to make sense of its past. Thus, in this chapter I look at Indonesia as a fashion locus, through a historical lens, and attempt to sketch out its trajectory and transitions, briefly examining its incarnations as pre-colonial, colonial, and postindependence dress, and as national dress under the New Order. It feels like a tour de force to compress so many centuries, aware that for each period a different fashion system is in place that should be separately studied; but through this effort I intend to provide a context and a background for the story I am weaving. It is important to be aware of what has preceded and shaped the fashion explosion of post-reformasi Indonesia, which is what I regard as contemporary Indonesian fashion, in order to understand better its position as the new kid on the block in a fast-paced and highly competitive global fashion scene. Heidi Boehlke notes, in her nuanced account, that fashion in postindependence and New Order Indonesia grew as an articulation of national culture and was consolidated by the government support it received as a means to forge a national identity. She names it “ethnafashion,” an acronym for ethnic, national, and fashion.1 This nationalist legacy underpins contemporary developments. In the course of this chapter I shall unveil the dynamics at work in this construct as also the forces engaged in dismantling it and transforming it, in the light of newer socio-cultural and political configurations, such as the rise of an Islamic “anti-fashion” discourse2 that is globally articulated. Reprising my earlier comments on the polarized dichotomy that has been created in many fashion studies scholarship between dress and fashion, with dress, unlike fashion, firmly established as an object of “serious” anthropological investigation, I shall use here “dress” to refer to the clothing and fashion of premodern and pre-colonial Indonesia only interchangeably with “fashion.” “Dress”, 3

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in my view, is not in opposition to “fashion” nor do I use the term solely with reference to “traditional” dress. I also readily acknowledge the existence of multiple fashion systems, as yet not widely studied, in Indonesian history, starting with pre-colonial Indonesia.3 As for the colonial period, over the past decade or so there have been exemplary in-depth studies of sartorial history in the Netherlands Indies, which have further illuminated the powerful role of dress and fashion as socio-cultural markers in a series of far-reaching social and political transformations.4 My first encounter with the dress of pre-colonial Indonesia was through the narrative reliefs of the Central Javanese temples of Borobudur and Prambanan (circa 700 to 900 CE ) and the imagery from the East Javanese temples, both the free-standing Singosari sculptures, such as Mahisasuramardini Durga, and the stylized narrative panels of candi Jago and candi Panataran (eleventh to fourteenth century CE ) and many more such temples. There have been several studies of the iconography of these monuments, including my own research on the dance reliefs of Prambanan, in which I briefly touched on the dancing figures’ attire, and there have also been notable attempts at relating the patterns of the sculpted walls of Javanese temples to existing textile motifs from the area.5 But the clothing of the figures has never been described as more than a generic “cloth” or “garment,” or maybe a kain, focusing instead in much greater detail on the elaborate headdresses and jewelry—I readily admit that I have myself been guilty of such superficiality in my past study. It is most arduous to find terms of reference for such ancient attires in the clothing worn by people in real life today because of the significant time gap. Moreover, one should steer clear of giving in to the temptation of projecting present-day practices onto the past, with imagined and tenuous continuities affecting the reconstruction, to avoid becoming entangled in a process of reinvention of tradition, with all its consequences.6 The garments seen in these sculptures often seem to be seethrough, although that may be simply an iconographic device to emphasize their lightness. Nor can we be sure about fabrics. Is it silk or is it cotton? We are not able to do more than conjecture. Kieven describes the aristocratic women of Majapahit temples as “adorned with more jewellery . . . and their breasts are covered by a kenben. Royal females as well as their maid servants often wear a second cloth beneath the outer one.” In other words, the higher the class, the more clothed the individual.7 Kenben (or kemben) is a key word here, as it shows that what today is an item of Javanese traditional court dress worn, for example, by brides and by Serimpi and Bedhaya dancers,8 was perhaps similarly used back in those days, though it could have been just a cloth wrapped tightly around the breasts to cover them and support their weight, an ancient brassière of sort. Covering the breasts would have been unusual for lower-class women. Balinese village women going about their daily chores bare-breasted up to the

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days of colonial rule in Bali, which came under direct Dutch administration in the nineteenth century, later than other parts of Indonesia, have been well documented. There is indeed a whole literature devoted to an examination of the male gaze and Balinese female breasts, as part of the widely touted construct of Bali as a tourist paradise.9 The Singosari Mahisasuramardini currently housed at the Museum Voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, is a stunning piece of sculpture, 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) in height, representing the goddess Durga in the act of slaying the demon Mahisa. We can clearly see that the goddess wears a layered cloth round the hips, perhaps a double-folded one, decorated with geometric motifs and tied in such a way as to fall into pleats at the front. It is comfortable enough as to allow for her wide, powerful warrior stance. An ornamented belt holds the lower cloth tight round her hips. She also wears what appears to be an embroidered light bodice, a kemben, held close to the body with a folded cloth (or is it a wide border?) just above the waist, her multiple arms bare. Her waist, navel, and the area immediately above the hips are fully exposed. Necklaces, bracelets, and a tall, richly decorated headdress complete her attire. It is not possible to identify what precious stones and metals were used in the abundant jewelry she wears, but from the existence of refined jewelry in the gold hoards discovered in Java, dating back to the eighth and ninth centuries, we can assume she wore gold, as that precious metal was known and used in ancient Java.10 Much of the clothing we see in sculptures from this and later times, or in the illustrated manuscripts with figures that have come down to us, copied and recopied throughout the centuries,11 or even the clothing depicted in much later paintings and drawings of the Dutch colonial era, leaves us in doubt as to whether these indigenous garments were merely folded, or cut, or partially cut and then stitched. We see folds and pleats but we do not know exactly how they were held together, we can only make assumptions. The presence of embroidery can, however, be inferred. We know that there is in Indonesia a time-honored local tradition of embroidery, enriched with Chinese and Indian influences, and, historically, embroidered cloth was traded with these countries.12 The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, coinciding with the establishment of the first Islamic kingdoms, such as the powerful Demak on the Northern coast of Java, and following the decline of Majapahit rule, saw the introduction of the kebaya blouse, which came to substitute, or perhaps simply cover, the kemben women wore, especially outside the court environment.13 The kebaya can be described as a long blouse reaching the hips or even falling below the knee, usually longsleeved. It is clasped at the front with brooches, rather than being held by buttons. In her account of the Indonesian kebaya,14 Vashti Trisawati Sujanto claims this item of clothing was originally worn in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by the Chinese and Portuguese mestizo women who were living on the western Malay peninsula, together with the kain or sarong that covered the lower part of the body.

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According to Trisawati Sujanto, the word kebaya may have been derived from the Arabic kaba, meaning clothes, or perhaps from the word habaya, also Arabic, which denotes clothing to cover the cleavage.15 From the Malacca straits, the kebaya made its way to Java, in all likelihood brought in by peranakan (straitsborn) Chinese and mestizo women, referred to as the nyai or nonya of Batavia, Singapore, Penang, and Medan.16 Their kebaya was typically white cotton, a material which was very common in the Indonesian archipelago at the time, traded from the Gujarat region and the Coromandel coast of India. Light upper garments made of cotton are seen worn by servants and members of the lower class in Dutch paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One can see women wearing sarong kebayas and seventeenth-century French dresses in such paintings, showing the fashion of the time.17 A kebaya combined with batik sarong was particularly loved by Indo (another name for mestizo) women, though there were restrictions on certain batik patterns, which were for the sole use of Javanese nobility.18 When the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) or Dutch East India Company began establishing its presence in Indonesia, the Dutch created what was to all effects a rather mixed interracial society. Lower Dutch officials were not allowed to bring their wives to Indonesia. As a result, “the introduction of dress items in the European household that were rooted in Asian cultures in general and Javanese society in particular, reflected the social and conjugal policies of the trading company.”19 The nineteenth century saw several socio-political changes (and important technological ones too, with the introduction of the sewing machine).20 Until then, elite Dutch women who had followed their husbands in Indonesia had been advised to wear kebaya in their everyday life and not to bring unnecessary cloth from the Netherlands, “because it could be obtained cheaply from Gerzon’s and de Bijenkorf’s who sold cloth suitable to the hot tropical climate of the Indies.”21 Kain kebaya had become ordinary clothing for Dutch and Indo women. This adoption of local dress, known as Indische kebaya, complemented by the use of batik Belanda, Dutch batik, was highly criticized when the British, and in particular Lady Olivia Raffles, wife of Sir Stamford, arrived in Batavia. Lady Raffles was aghast at the lack of refinement displayed by the Dutch elite ladies and gasped at the sight of them going out “in their underwear.” The local Gazette began at once to run articles on Paris and London fashion urging Batavian ladies to dress appropriately.22 The British interlude and other political events in the nineteenth century, including the Diponegoro War of 1825 to 1830,23 saw a series of substantial changes, putting an end to any hybridization that had been practiced until then. Foremost among such changes were laws stipulating there should be differentiation of the local population by ethnic dress—the Ethical Policy—in order to comply with the complexity of the legal system and avoid transgressions, since skin color alone was insufficient to identify ethnicity. Dress became

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instrumental in legitimizing colonial authority.24 Mirroring the European adoption of Javanese dress “to associate themselves with local concepts of power,” the Javanese elite began to adopt European dress, and shoes in particular, for both men and women, “to link themselves to European authority,”25 thus introducing an element of subversion in what Bhabha calls an “appropriation of the Other” through a visualization of power.26 An important development by the end of the nineteenth century was the rise of a batik industry, resulting in the innovation of batik stamps (known in Bahasa as cap), which fostered faster production and cheaper batik materials. Together with the import of batik-imitation made by the Dutch cotton industry, it meant that Javanese commoners could buy batik too, which would subsequently give it leverage as a “national dress.”27 Also, dressmakers and seamstresses, empowered by the increasing availability of the sewing machine, could make copies of Dutch fashion, itself inspired by Paris, by then established as the absolute capital of European fashion since the days of Louis XIV.28 Taylor describes the humble, manually operated Singer machine as a precious object in European households in the Indies and also the proliferation of tailor shops owned by Chinese and Indos, going on to say that “making clothes called for skills of measurement and an acquired familiarity with Dutch metric measures. Fitting entailed an intimacy of bodily contact between worker and employer. Sewing also introduced the seamstress to new styles of clothing, to Dutch concepts of what parts of the body ought to be covered and what might be exposed.” Taylor goes on to describe the fashion habits of Dutch women in the Indies at the start of the twentieth century: “[they] still wore a variant of the Javanese kain kebaya at home . . . but their kebaya was distinguished by bands of machine-sewn lace embroidery. When they went out, Dutch women wore European frocks or blouses and skirts. Unlike the majority of Javanese women of the time, Dutch women covered their hair with a hat when in public.”29 This, coupled with the concomitant rise of Indonesian nationalism, marked a twist in the history of the kebaya, which took on stronger political connotations. By this time, Dutch and Indo women had discontinued wearing kain kebaya in public, as its use was now labeled as “going native” and kain kebaya was disparaged as a form of traditional dress suitable only to the village. The Dutch increasingly began to see the kebaya as linked with insurgent nationalism, whereas young fashionable Indonesians would regard it as not modern enough. There was, in other words, a multi-layered reconstitution of dress as a social and political marker. Indonesian women who attended Dutch schools—a few privileged ones, belonging to a rising urban middle-class30—were regarded as modern and progressive, and tended to wear dresses, blouses, or skirts. Many rode bikes and played sports such as tennis, and there is no doubt that kain kebaya was not a practical attire when carrying out such activities. The Dutch forbade the wearing

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of kain kebaya in their schools. The result was that only rural women, or lower status women such as household servants, wore this form of dress in their everyday life. It has been argued that embracing Western dress in colonial Indonesia had an anti-colonialist thrust and thus was an expression of resistance. Drawing on Bhabha, Luthfi Adam writes that for Indonesians, Western dress during the colonial period was a choice, not an imposition, and that the promotion of Western dress by the nationalists was underpinned by mimicry.31 Hoogervorst and Schulte Nordholt in their discussion of the rise of the urban middle-classes in colonial Indonesia and the formation of urban lifestyles, quote at length, in translation, a passage from the short story Satoe gadis modern (A modern girl) written in 1924 by Jan San Ang to exemplify the idealized circumstances of a wealthy girl of Chinese descent in 1920s Bandung: “driving around by car to Pasar Baroe Street or to one of the theatres in the city, wearing a sky-blue skirt and a hat topped with a bird-of-paradise’s feather” (emphasis mine).32 However, on scrutiny this reveals itself as a complex gendered issue, because the kebaya did enjoy a privileged status within nationalist discourse, which turned women into guardians of national culture, as discussed by Taylor.33 Moreover, as Van der Meer points out “Javanese girls were not expected to transition to high schools, but return to the patriarchal households and traditional dress . . . if the vernacular press serves as a reliable indicator, a considerable number still did . . . [despite] the entry of Western-educated women in the workplace as secretaries, telephone operators, and teachers.”34 Kebaya-wearing Raden Adjeng Ayu Kartini, Javanese noble woman, advocate of female emancipation, and a national hero, author of a series of famous letters in Dutch to her friends in Europe, published as a single volume, encapsulates the Indonesian modernity favored by the nationalists in relation to women. Competing agendas and competing perceptions of modernity, differentiated by gender, seem to emerge in this debate on the thrust of colonial politics among the Dutch and the Indonesians, especially the Javanese. On balance, we see that, shaped by multiple influences from the Portuguese, the Islamic culture of the northern coastal kingdoms of Java, the peranakan Chinese and Dutch colonial culture, as also the incipient nationalist discourse, the kebaya can be identified as a key item of female dress in pre-colonial and colonial Indonesia.

Post-independence Indonesia and national dress: The Batik Indonesia project Indonesian independence was declared in 1945, but the Dutch would not agree to it and bitterly fought it for the next four years. World War II had seen a Japanese

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occupation of Indonesia from 1942 to 1945, which had left the country deeply scarred, with Indonesians suffering severe hardship, though at first they had welcomed the Japanese, believing they would free them from the Dutch.35 The problem with the Japanese was that they espoused and enforced fascism and in so doing they shattered several Indonesian dreams. They took over from the Dutch, changed Batavia’s name to Djakarta (Jakarta) and visible signs of Dutch rule disappeared, while prisoners’ camps began to spring up. Men were turned into laborers while many women were made to work as “comfort women”36 in brothels scattered all over Asia. But the Japanese also allowed the nationalists to continue their work and supported Sukarno,37 as this was seen to go in favor of the war effort: “Japanese propaganda proclaimed a new age. In this era women were expected to maintain femininity, but were simultaneously part of the mobilisation of the general population. They were conscripted into work groups where they wore pants and even into a military training body . . . most of all the Japanese new age promoted military values.”38 However, things were turning sour for Japan, the Allies were gaining ground, and the 1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sealed Japan’s fate. It also emboldened the Indonesian nationalists, who from then on were in charge. In December 1949, Dutch colonial rule formally ended, as the Dutch finally agreed to hand over sovereignty, but the new Indonesia “was an imperfect new nation that had been born of the fire of occupation and revolution.”39 The 1950s saw the triumph of nationalism and a serious effort at nation building, with national identity and modernity becoming intertwined.40 This was the time of the Old Order (Order Lama), which lasted until 1965, ending with a blood bath—when six senior generals were kidnapped and murdered by the Army, accusing the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) of having masterminded the killings—and with the subsequent massacre of all Communists (or anyone thought to be a communist) and permanent ban of the PKI, in the following years, under Suharto and his generals, the architects of the New Order (Order Baru).41 This period immediately after independence, under the exuberant leadership of the charismatic Sukarno, was characterized by the politics of Non-Alignment with respect to the Cold War, following the 1955 Asia–Africa conference in Bandung, West Java, and the Konfrontasi (Confrontation) with the newly formed Malaysia, which Indonesia antagonized over the possession of Borneo (Kalimantan). As Vickers notes, the emphasis on modernization can be gathered from media images of the time, with new clothes and accessories such as RayBan sunglasses, cowboy hats, and tight clothing being advertised.42 Lindsey writes that “the 1950s and early 1960s was a time when Indonesia’s links with the world and its nationhood were vigorously negotiated on the wide cultural front. It was a heady time of nation building. Culture was at the very heart

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of relations between people, which was what nation building was most crucially about, as artists and intellectuals in the young republic reflected upon, engaged and experimented with, and argued vigorously about what was linking and dividing them and making them ‘Indonesian’.”43 In this context of “vivid cultural mobility” in which “the process of cultural formation is transparent,”44 dress becomes extremely important as the outward appearance of this “Indonesianness,” which is attempting to define itself not only with reference to Western modernity but also to rising Eastern/Asian modernity such as China and Nasser’s Egypt, exemplary of modern Muslim culture.45 This was the time of the full revival of batik as constituent of this national dress and a newer Indonesian fashion, the batik Indonesia, communicating to the world an Indonesian sensibility. It is important to note how in this process of national identity construction there is a conflation of Indonesianness and Javaneseness, establishing from the start a hegemonic role for Javanese culture in the newly formed Indonesia and in this continuing something that had already begun with the Dutch fascination with Javanese courtly symbols of power. As Kühr writes: “Java continues to exert its dominance over surrounding islands; a perception supported by Sukarno’s declaration, which informed the public about citation of Indonesia in Indic literature. The term, Indonesia, and the national culture it represents are imaginative constructs and remain as such – imagined.”46 Sukarno’s batik Indonesia project was underpinned by this Javanization. Preceded by a series of initiatives such as the establishing of batik cooperatives in Java’s major cities, the project took off through Sukarno’s association with Go Tik Swan (aka K.R.T. Hardjonagoro, as he later changed his name to a more Javanese sounding one) from Surakarta (Solo), of Chinese descent, whose knowledge of batik patterns went back at least three generations, his family having made cap batik for that long. Go Tik Swan was a philosophy and literature student in Jakarta. He was trained in Javanese court dance and performed at a university function that the President attended. After finding out that Go Tik Swan came from a traditional batik making family, Sukarno persuaded him to start a batik revival project in Solo. Go Tik Swan traveled to the north coast of Java and then to Bali where he met Walter Spies, whose influence in the shaping of Balinese modern art and his active involvement in the twentieth-century art scene of Indonesia is now widely celebrated. Following his travels and inspired by his interaction with the artists he met through Spies, Go Tik Swan returned to Solo and established a small factory of batik tulis (hand-painted batik), the effort gaining the total support of Sukarno. It was the start of batik Indonesia and as McCabe Elliott notes, “designers were intrigued by Hardjonagoro’s ability to unify both north coast and central Javanese designs as by his dramatic enlargement of traditional patterns.”47 In his later years, K.R.T. Hardjonagoro, as he was by now known, actively involved himself in developing the Radyapustaka Museum in Solo

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to further people’s knowledge of Javanese court culture. The exquisite innovations in batik making devised by Hardjonagoro translated into kain and sarong worn by both men and women.48 Women continued to combine it with kebaya and wear it with modern accessories, as photos of the period indicate. Hardjonagoro’s batik was also used for hangings and for decorative household pieces.49 It is important to underscore the significance of batik in Sukarno’s imagination. He “rescued Indonesian batik from fading into history [and] integrated his awareness of batik’s potent possibilities . . . Batik would represent the essential characteristics of what he understood to be the presence of an Indonesian Personality,” the latter a metaphor employed by Sukarno and which, according to Kühr, was objectified in batik.50 However, during this time, European style dress modeled on European fashion, did not disappear but continued to be available, particularly via Singapore, which had become a true hub for fashion and textiles in the region, and also through Chinese and Indian-run tailor shops.51

The New Order and Iwan Tirta: Batik uniforms and batik haute couture As mentioned, 1965 saw the end of Sukarno through a coup engineered by the Army, the latter already a powerful role player in the politics of the 1950s, as noted by Vickers.52 Sukarno’s apparent entanglement with the PKI antagonized the general mood and internationally there were fears that Indonesia, like Vietnam, might choose communism. The consequences of the military action on that fateful September 30, 1965 night were far-reaching. Major-General Suharto had firm control of the country by October 2, 1965 and soon after the “communist” massacre began. As Robinson writes: “In a little over six months from late 1965 an estimated half a million members of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI) and its affiliated organisations were killed. Another million or so were detained without charge, some for more than thirty years and many of them were subjected to torture and other inhumane treatment . . . It was one of the largest and swiftest, yet least examined instances of mass killing and incarceration in the twentieth century.”53 The fear of the PKI, banned from Indonesia to this day, touched a raw nerve as it was believed that communism opposed religion in all its forms, and that the communists, once in power, would forbid religious worship, an incongruity in the light of the first principle of the Pancasila—the Five Principles expounded by Sukarno upon which the Indonesian nation was founded. Communism was thus perceived as a genuine threat to the nation and it was an easy game to use a populist rhetoric to the effect of brainwashing the entire population. Areas with strong traditional and very conservative leadership were particularly targeted in the blood bath that ensued, Bali and East Java in particular.54

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Suharto’s New Order did away with democracy altogether (which already with Sukarno had gone through a period of being “Guided,” revealing Sukarno’s own authoritarian tendencies)55 and introduced tough censorship. The country was stabilized, foreign investors were welcomed once again (and indeed began to queue up), and the Army ruled, in a sort of benevolent way. Unlike Sukarno, whom Pisani pointedly describes as a “visionary saviour” always popping up at rallies, who “guided politics as though he were Cecil B. De Mille [wanting] all Indonesians to become extras in a political pageant under his direction, and damn the cost!” Suharto, “was quiet, methodical . . . a concerned uncle.”56 Corruption was rampant under the New Order and it became endemic to the system.57 But the New Order did not break away from the past, on the contrary, it actively continued the policy of building a national consciousness and national unity, carrying on the project of the Javanization of Indonesia—Suharto did not disregard the “unity in diversity” nationalist motto of the country, beloved by Sukarno, but under his rule the diversity of Indonesia was made acceptable by turning it into a pretty display, like Taman Mini, a pet project of Ibu Tien, Suharto’s wife. Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (The Beautiful Mini Indonesia Park) was conceived as a nationalist theme park, modeled on Disneyland, which intended to represent, in a sanitized way, the many Indonesian cultures and its “approved” faiths, among which Chinese Taoism was definitely absent.58 This is the time when national dress was deemed to be a requirement, on formal occasions, and also when a fashion largely centered on the use of batik was created. Of course, Indonesians also wore Western-style clothing—it was after all in 1966 that the first department store, Sarinah, opened on Jalan Thamrin in Jakarta. There were boutiques where people could buy clothes off the rack. There was also Peter Sie, who had been active since the 1950s, rigorously schooled in dressmaking in Holland, and numbering among the first couturiers of the new nation. Sie was instrumental in creating one of the first designer associations in 1969, named PAPMI (Perhimpunan Ahli Perancang Mode Indonesia, Association of Professional Indonesian Fashion Designers) and renamed IPBMI in the 1980s—now IPMI—together with Non Kawilarang and Carmanita Mambo, the latter still active, and famously wrote to the newspaper Kompas bemoaning the lack of press coverage for fashion and wondering where the Indonesian designers were.59 However, there was a tendency, strongly encouraged by the government, to use print batik (not to be confused with cap batik) for office uniforms of both men and women. Women in particular were encouraged to showcase “traditional” ethnic dress on official celebrations, such as Independence Day on August 17 and that ethnic dress was largely—though not solely—batik. The national dress for women was to all effects kain kebaya, worn with heels and jewelry, and the hair held back in a large bun, often padded with a hair piece, the konde. It was an image of Indonesianness, which many still cherish to this day.60

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Reminiscing about her childhood in the 1970s, when the New Order was firmly established, Julia Suryakusuma writes that “the Indonesian female body dressed in kain kebaya became a personification of the nation, defining it as unique and non-Western and symbolising the notion that despite adopting so many Western attributes, in spirit we could still be ‘Indonesians,’ pure and untainted.”61 Heidi Boehlke has discussed the rise of fashion, the “world fashion silhouette” as she calls it, during the New Order, as a project of national culture building as opposed to merely being national dress or regional representation of dress. She notes that the batik shirt as office uniform for men, introduced by Ali Sadikin during his years as head of the Jakarta Metropolitan Administration and inspired by the Barong Tagalog of the Philippines, was “a chance to promote batik textile as one specimen of Indonesian culture,” as Sadikin told her.62 It was a reconfiguration of batik, which had never been worn as an upper garment before, not in traditional Javanese court culture. Post-1965 Indonesia saw the rise of a powerful name in the field of Indonesian fashion: Iwan Tirta.63 With him, the New Order continued the Batik Indonesia project that had begun with Go Tik Swan and Sukarno but there were newer developments such as a batik couture and the actual transformation of batik into a commodity that would appeal to a cosmopolitan consumer. Tirta gave vent to his creativity, finding inspiration in other art forms too—Kühr notes for instance the kinetic quality of a photograph of one of Tirta’s silk gazars juxtaposing it with an iconic image of Martha Graham in her work “Letter to the World.”64 The resemblance is uncanny and it provides evidence of Tirta’s sophisticated understanding of imagery and fashion photography. Born in Central Java of Sumatran mother and West Javanese father, Tirta came from a well-to-do family that had a connection with the court. Young Tirta was brought up exposed to Javanese culture but was also given a Western education. He trained as a lawyer and traveled to the UK, where he studied at the London School of Economics from 1959 to 1961. In his 1966 book, he describes his embarrassment when he was asked to give a talk on Indonesia about which he did not know so much, as he realized. He chose to discuss batik, which his mother collected, and researched it at the British Museum.65 It was a formative experience that made him realize that literature on batik as an art form was inaccessible to Indonesians as it was in English and also that batik did not sell well overseas as it tended to be made in cotton rather than silk. When he returned to Indonesia through his friendship with Benedict Anderson, he began to take a renewed interest in batik patterns with a view to photographing and cataloging them for Cornell University. His research led him to commission replicas of batik in museum collections and he subsequently began to sell them to the Jakarta elite. He also published his first book.66 Continuing his career as a lawyer with a Master’s degree from Yale, Tirta kept his interest in batik going,

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selling his pieces in the US and eventually obtaining a Rockfeller grant to pursue a thorough documentation of the court dances of Surakarta. This led to his friendship with Hardjonagoro, who mentored him. Tirta had vision and created new designs but went beyond merely adding new patterns. He understood the potential batik had to be turned into clothes with clear and simple lines characterized by the unique beauty of the patterns and made with high-quality materials, silk foremost. He later diversified and added household items, adapting batik tulis by widening its borders so that it could be turned into tasteful bedspreads and upholstery for elegant homes.67 He founded the Iwan Tirta Private Collection (PT Iwan Tirta) in 2003, opening in 2008 the Collection’s flagship store at Plaza Indonesia, one of the chicest of Jakarta malls. Tirta died in 2010, but Iwan Tirta Private Collection continues to make ready-to-wear and couture, often collaborating with young designers, such as Mel Ahyar in 2018. Boehlke describes Tirta as essentially a batik connoisseur, pointing out that he was not a trained fashion designer, thus he would employ minimal fitting but, she says, “wider fabric widths meant that Tirta could consider batik on yardage for world dress. A world dress shift or long gown required the purchase of two or three identical kain batiks. Increased widths and unlimited lengths meant that he could magnify batik elements.”68 Given his knowledge of the court dances of Java, his evening wear often referenced the batik patterns used by dancers for their costumes, which in the Indonesian imaginary was linked to great refinement. Two of Tirta’s models were actual court princesses and the rather lavish fashion shows staged in 1992 and in 1994 recreated court settings and involved Javanese dancing.69 Tirta’s specific innovation was the creation of couture, which up until then had only existed in embryo. The batik couture of the New Order, sustained by its policies, became a representation of national culture and of Indonesian culture to the world at large, together with wayang, gamelan, and the court dances of Solo and Yogyakarta.70

From the 1970s to post-reformasi: Modern and contemporary Indonesian fashion systems I have mentioned the birth of PAPMI in 1969, predecessor of IPMI through the IPBMI phase. The 1970s, apart from the triumphal establishment of batik couture, saw the rise of an organized national fashion system, with fashion designing becoming a profession and fashion shows routinely established. It would take a few more years to see fashion modeling turning into a professional activity, with competitions, model searches, and model agencies. Syamsidar Isa,

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known as Mbak Tjammy, founded Studio One in 1975 together with Lily Salim and Prajudi Admodirdjo. Studio One organized fashion events, as well as housing a boutique, and also acted as a model agency. “We did not have professional models back then. I started looking for girls that could walk for our designers in fashion shows,” Mbak Tjammy told me when I interviewed her in 2015.71 Her daughter, Aida Nurmala, now runs Studio One, whereas Tjammy, still involved with IPMI, also directs Cita Tenun Indonesia, an association founded for the appreciation and preservation of tenun. Prajudi is another leading name in the Indonesian fashion of this period because his energy was focused on turning tenun ikat, which is from many different parts of Indonesia and is thus varied in appearance, into a cloth that would also represent Indonesianness, just like batik. He envisioned Jakarta as a world fashion centre, even though he was somewhat disappointed that Indonesians seemed to be more willing to buy Western fashion than a local label—something that is still somewhat ingrained in the mind-set of Indonesian consumers, encouraged in this by the very structure of malls, which privilege foreign brands, as will be seen in Chapter five. Unlike Tirta, Prajudi trained as a designer in Germany, returning to Indonesia in the early 1970s, and setting to work to develop Indonesian apparel and create a fashion that could compete with international fashion houses. Describing the Jakarta in which she grew up, Boehlke writes: “Indonesian designers and dressmakers such as Peter Sie, Non Kawilarang, or Ibu Sud had their own workshop where clients placed orders for apparel. Foreign nationals living in Indonesia, for example, ordered batik dresses from Ibu Sud’s shop. Upscale boutiques sold imported apparel or a few ready-to-wear batik dresses but not one carried designs by an Indonesian label.”72 Initially, Prajudi would work with batik, making office uniforms—tailored suits—for women, in keeping with the batik trend supported by Sadikin. Then at some point he began to explore the sartorial possibilities that weaving yielded, around 1983, as Boehlke reports.73 Prajudi died in 1995. He received prestigious awards such as the Upakarti from President Suharto for his revival of traditional weaving techniques. His work was often shown in other ASEAN countries, and he also dressed royalty, e.g. Queen Juliana on the occasion of a state visit to Indonesia, and international dignitaries. It should be pointed out that working with traditional textiles and techniques was not conducive to making cheap garments. It was not profitable either, but Prajudi believed it was his mission to support the work of the craftsmen and create fashion out of it. He told Boehlke that “a designer has a duty to improve the technical and management skills of local textile weavers,” and that “he aimed for designs that were appropriate and in harmony with the personality of Indonesian people.”74 Prajudi also redesigned kain kebaya, transforming it into the Prajudi signature kebaya with puffed sleeves. A fashion journalist wrote in 1995 that “wearing kain

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kebaya is complicated and troublesome for many Indonesian women. In Prajudi’s hands, these traditional textiles were tailored into elegant and chic haute couture evening dresses, cocktail dresses and ready-to-wear outfits.”75 Starting from the 1980s there was a cluster of designers who were very active, some of whom are still working today. Ghea Panggabean is among them, transforming pelangi/jumputan into a third national cloth, alongside batik and tenun, representing Indonesian identity and chic on the international stage. But as she is one of the most active designers of contemporary Indonesia, I will not pre-empt my discussion in Chapter three. The most important developments in fashion that characterize the later years of the New Order are summarized by Boehlke as follows: “a thriving textile and garment export industry; the rise of fashion magazines, competitions, shows, organizations; an articulated goal of Indonesia as a fashion center for Asia; attempts at fashion designer-textile firm-retailer cooperation. Fashion designers’ use of handicraft textile traditions of batik, ikat, pelangi occurred in this milieu of fashion activities.”76 Thus, we see a concerted effort to turn Jakarta into a major fashion capital, with fashion trade fairs, that is, fashion weeks that would coincide with the height of the tourist season to maximize business potential and a governmental attempt to boost the apparel retail sector, encouraging cooperation with textile firms. The government also involved designers in its cultural missions and as representatives of Indonesian culture—Ghea Panggabean, for example, was invited to meet the Princess of Wales on the occasion of Charles and Diana’s official visit to Indonesia in 1989 because the notoriously shy Princess, nicknamed “Shy-Di” by British tabloids was a fashion lover.77 The main developments of the 1990s were the formation of a designer association, first IPMI (which, as mentioned, was none other than a reincarnation of IPBMI), then APPMI, which was more inclusive than IPMI, created by Poppy Dharsono, society girl, model, film maker, architecture student, and flâneuse in Paris in the early 1970s; she is also a designer and owner of a boutique, which she opened in Jakarta in 1978, after attending the fashion school ESMOD. The two organizations soon distanced themselves from each other. Poppy Dharsono also served as Chair of the Chamber of Commerce (KADIN), supporting the textile cottage industries. IPMI began its annual trend shows in 1994 to increase cooperation with the textile industry. APPMI also actively pursued an alliance with textile industries, and they too had a show in 1994 presided by the Minister of Trade Satrio Budihardjo who expressed the view that Indonesia should “tap into its wealth of traditional textiles to produce a mainstream Indonesian style for both clothes and textiles that can be exported.”78 The eventual rather frosty relationship between the two organizations, with IPMI regarded as having greater standing, may have originated in them both

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wanting to turn Jakarta into a major fashion centre in Asia and going about it with “aggressive” determination.79 This would lead, several years later, to JFW, with a strong IPMI base, and ID.FW, showcasing mostly APPMI designers, although more recently such divisions have become less significant. 1995 was a milestone for fashion in Indonesia, as it marked fifty years of independence from the Dutch, celebrated with an explosion of fashion shows with a strong emphasis on traditional textiles. APPMI presented an entire show of eclectic Muslim fashion, in consonance with the “unity in diversity” theme, with mixed reactions from the fashion cognoscenti.80 Elsa Klensch of Cable Network News Style selected Indonesia to be highlighted, something that led Dini S. Djalal to write with pride in The Jakarta Post that “no longer are Asian designers the backward cousins of their First World counterparts.”81 Thus, we can say that under the New Order fashion articulated a national identity with the support of government policies integrating economic growth and cultural expression, of which fashion was part. This was about to change dramatically with the demise of the New Order in 1998 and the economic and political transformation of the period known as Reformasi 98—from the year 1998—and Post-reformasi, which stretches to contemporary times. 1996 heralded some newer developments in Indonesian fashion, with several Euro-American fashion brands opening franchises in Plaza Indonesia and Senayan, preceded by visits to Indonesia by the designers themselves on the lookout for newer markets. Continuing the efforts of the previous years, a fashion week was arranged, the first fashion week as such, held at the Jakarta Convention Center and curated by Poppy Dharsono.82 It was also a year of great unrest with the riots of summer 1996, which were a prelude to 1998, when Suharto eventually had to resign and Indonesia had its democratic rights restored, becoming one of the newer democracies among Asian developing countries. Vickers has commented that among the factors that contributed to Suharto’s fall were not only pressures from outside Indonesia for respecting human rights but also and, perhaps more decisively, the widespread sentiment that the economy ought to be liberalized so that Indonesia could be a participant in the global consumer society.83 The demise of Suharto occurred as the consequence of a series of sustained campus-led violent demonstrations in Jakarta and other parts of Indonesia in May 1998, in which thousands of students participated, and through whom the general dissatisfaction felt by Indonesians with the regime and the monetary crisis that had swept through Asia coalesced. Doreen Lee has given a compelling analysis of the student movement that toppled the regime, highlighting the links between nationalism, authoritarianism, and radicalization.84 Be that as it may, the period 1998 to 2018, highly significant in the context of this book as it shaped Indonesian contemporary fashion, continues to be discussed and written about, as Indonesia appears to be on the verge of major

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changes. These last two decades have seen major shifts in the socio-economic and socio-political landscape of Indonesia, still an emerging democracy, and these transitions have called the attention of a number of historians, social commentators, and political analysts, all of whom have attempted to grapple with the rapid transformations and incessant recastings of the social and political reality of this vexed country.85 They have commented extensively on the import of debates surrounding newer configurations of Islam and the overwrought relationship between Islam and the state, as also, on issues of decentralization, human rights, and minority rights. Indonesia is not an Islamic state, despite its large Muslim population, but in recent years there have been demands for shari’a law,86 raising the concerns of the more liberal and secular sections of society and of the sizable Christian minority. Debates on the role of Islam in the country are not new, they were already present in the years immediately after independence,87 but for a long time Indonesian Islam was underscored by the reiteration of a pluralistic and tolerant Indonesia, bhinneka tunggal ika (unity in diversity) being the abiding principle. One of the consequences of the liberalization following 1998, has been greater visibility for Muslims and greater opportunities for them to articulate their demands, concomitant with the rise of conservative populism. Indonesia increasingly faces challenges from a threatening religious intolerance.88 Timothy Lindsey takes the pulse of contemporary Indonesia when he writes that the 2017 rallies orchestrated by hard-core Islamists, which resulted in a charge of blasphemy and imprisonment of Ahok, the Christian ethnic Chinese governor of Jakarta, “shocked many Indonesians as much as they did foreign observers. Worse still, advocates of pluralism and minority rights in Indonesia feel intimidated and, by their own admission, are beginning to self-censor.”89 Selfcensorship is a legacy of the New Order, an “old trick” that seems to have endured, as already noted by Tapsell in 2012 in the context of journalistic reportage and is now being refueled by a proliferation of strong-arm tactics.90 In the age of Post-reformasi, a free trade era, the national fashion system of the New Order has imploded. Indonesian fashion faces huge challenges in terms of marketing, both nationally and internationally. Internationally, there is great competition from other Asian countries, aggressively pursuing the Asian and the Euro-American market, and there are voices from within Indonesia that encourage an Indonesian fashion for Indonesians first because the Indonesian market is far from being exhausted and is large enough to absorb the entirety of local production.91 Meanwhile, the colorful busana muslim from Indonesia seen on international runways,92 is tipped to be heir to the national dress of earlier decades, increasingly viewed as representative of Indonesianness by the rest of the world, though not by Indonesians themselves—does sopan equate shari’a is the question that sums up the dilemma of many contemporary Indonesian women considering the issue, which remains unsettled.

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Newer heterogeneous fashion systems are in the process of being formed, underscored by the socio-economic and political challenges faced by twentyfirst century Indonesia. In the next chapters I will try to unravel present-day Indonesian fashion as I understand it to be, repositioning it vis à vis the earlier and distinct “fashion in Indonesia” I have discussed here.

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PART TWO

PRESENTING FASHION

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2 PERFORMING FASHION: FASHION WEEKS, FASHION EVENTS, FASHION-AS-ART Jakarta as the centre of Indonesian fashion As I landed at Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on September 16, 2015, I was gearing myself up for five weeks of intense preparations before JFW16, due to take place from October 24 to 30, 2015. It was the seventh edition of JFW, under the auspices of the Femina Group. As mentioned, there had been previous attempts, modeled on those of the fashion capitals of the Western world, at holding a fashion week in Jakarta that would ideally tie in with the tourist season, twice a year. However the major political and economic changes that had followed that 1996 first fashion week had brought such plans to a halt, enforcing a break.1 Thus, a new fashion week project was started from scratch in 2008. It was regarded as a priority for Indonesian fashion, in order for it to be aligned with fashion globally and with the rising fashion capitals of neighboring Asian countries, especially Seoul. The easily accessible international fashion TV channels, many of which broadcast from Asian countries, have ensured that the “fashion week” concept as it developed in the late twentieth century,2 would be fully embraced by Indonesian designers and the Indonesian media. The general public, through TV, print media, and online images, was fully aware of the significance of the fashion week internationally and an Indonesian version was warmly welcomed.3 Indonesians, as said earlier, regard fashion shows as a form of entertainment—it is often said, only part jokingly, that there are more fashion shows in Jakarta than in Paris—and it is not unusual to walk into a hotel, even just a middle ranking one, and find that the TV in the lounge is tuned to the Fashion Channel. 23

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The other major fashion week in Jakarta, ID.FW, which takes place in the spring, was launched in 2012 by Poppy Dharsono and the designer association APPMI, to complement the largely IPMI dominated JFW, and was also on my list of shows to attend, particularly since designer Taruna Kusmayadi, a senior staff member at IKJ, my Indonesian research counterpart and sponsor, was involved with ID.FW and APPMI. However, my visa did not stretch beyond December 2015. I knew I would need to return specially for ID.FW, something I ended up doing in March 2018, to get more up-to-date research material that could counterbalance my research of 2015. I regarded attendance of JFW, as indeed of ID.FW, to be a priority, because I knew from my own experience of fashion weeks elsewhere that everyone who is anyone in fashion (or aspires to be someone) would congregate at one venue for an entire working week, from designers (not just the ones who were presenting their collections but also those who had been specially invited to attend or be competition judges) to models and celebrities, representatives of the press and photographers, fashionistas, bloggers, representatives of major cultural organizations and embassies, special guests, various hangers-on, not to mention ordinary visitors. Dressing up at fashion shows is a must. International fashion magazines in the run-up to a fashion week often have articles for both men and women on how to dress when attending a show. It is at fashion weeks that one sees the “street style” of bloggers and influencers, and photos of what is often termed “the sidewalk fashion” are always published in magazines and on social media to accompany photos of the collections—Vogue online in particular always presents a full range of looks from around the world, though sadly this rarely stretches to Jakarta. “Street style” is indeed a global phenomenon and I have seen interpretations of “street style” at both JFW and ID.FW, including the so-called “hijab street style.”4 It is more or less standard practice to be photographed when attending a fashion show, and to post pictures on social media with hashtags. Thus, attendees do their best to turn up wearing great clothes or specific designer pieces—influencers certainly do. At the opening ceremonies of both JFW and ID.FW, where most of the attendees were dignitaries, there was a strict dress code—at ID.FW18 the invite explicitly said that dress should be formal “with a touch of culture,” a coded word for national dress.5 I had never been to a fashion week or indeed a fashion show in Indonesia before 2015, but I was aware that in many respects fashion weeks, internationally, tend to follow a rather similar pattern, cramming show upon show and interspersing them with talks, and giving the general public an opportunity to buy clothes and the trends from the runway shows. There is usually a dedicated area for exhibitors with temporary showrooms and, increasingly, one can buy online almost immediately after the show, following a “see now, buy now” policy. Shows

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are choreographed and the music is almost always very loud and upbeat. People tend to snap away with mobile phones—I find that when I sit next to fashion editors they know exactly when and what to snap, and am rather envious of their uncanny ability to record a trend. No cameras, apart from camera phones, are allowed, and flash is banned. Recognized professional photographers are grouped together in the “photographers’ pit,” ready to capture models (with flash) as they walk to the end of the runway and pose briefly for them—the rule for models is usually to count up to three while striking a pose then walk back. My main worry, when I arrived in Jakarta, was how to get hold of invites, which are a mandatory requirement to attend shows—one can certainly buy an entry ticket and browse the exhibitor stands or manage to get a seat at one of the many press conferences and talks but that will not get anyone anywhere near a show. I realized that getting invites would be quite a task, as no one knew me from Adam in Jakarta fashion circles. Press representatives and buyers are allowed in at all the shows, upon registration, but otherwise it is all at the discretion of the designer.6 I had done some homework before arriving, firing up emails, but at IKJ they told me that invites were difficult to come by, so I concluded I should just contact people and unabashedly ask. A good friend produced an old-fashioned, thick address book, with name upon name scribbled in there, a diary that had grown through the decades. I remember sitting with this friend at a fashionable café in Kemang, South Jakarta, where I was lodging, frantically entering contact names on my brand-new phone, bought for that purpose.7 I came away from the meeting with a long list of phone numbers and email addresses. Her advice was to use “WhatsApp” as this is the preferred way to communicate in busy Jakarta. I worked on a standard message of introduction, which I would then send out and often pair up with an email giving all my credentials. I followed that up with reminders in the following days. After securing my first interview with Carmanita, one of the IPMI core designers, I was also able to get to the organizers of JFW, through a personal introduction, and made my formal request for a press pass to Svida Alisjahbana, Chair of JFW. The pass was very graciously granted a week before the start of JFW—I was truly over the moon. A press pass was a godsend for my research as it allowed me to attend all the shows. It was up to me to negotiate a front or second or third row seat (front being the best for viewing but hard to obtain) once I was at the venue, depending on availability, respectful of the seating priorities of the invited celebrities and also of the main media representatives.8 The seating etiquette of fashion shows follows a rigid protocol. I have often joked that the etiquette of fashion shows’ seating arrangements worldwide must have been conceived by the Balinese, as they observe an arrangement indicative of one’s status during ritual functions.9

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This chapter discusses the two main fashion weeks of Jakarta, JFW and ID.FW, drawing on my research of 2015 and 2018, though I also consider other fashion events, as witnessed during my trips, such as the fashion shows taking place at major shopping malls in Jakarta, the annual IPMI Trend Show, and the attempts at combining fashion with art and presenting it as an art installation.10 I regard the fashion week and its multiple fashion shows as spectacle, taking on board Evans’ views, inspired by Debord, of the fashion show as “a commercial seduction through novelty and innovation, typically in the form of the showpiece designed to attract press coverage on the catwalk.”11 I focus on the overall political significance of the “fashion week,” and through this, I attempt to unveil the multiple negotiations and mediations surrounding the presentation of fashion design in contemporary Indonesia.

Jakarta Fashion Week Most fashion weeks are named after the city they take place in (“not the country,” as someone who was critical of ID.FW told me). As we know, it was already a goal of the New Order to turn Jakarta into an international fashion centre— Jakarta as an Asian fashion capital was the dream. That dream began to turn into reality when Cornell-educated Pia Alisjahbana, co-founder of the Femina Group, which publishes a host of magazines, including Femina and Dewi, the Indonesian equivalent of Vogue,12 and later, her daughter Svida, a mathematician and economist also American educated, now Chief Executive of the Group, launched a new designer competition that led to establishing JFW in 2008. As I met with Svida Alisjahbana in September 2015 at the Gedung Femina, a landmark building in Jakarta, she gave me some background history about JFW and told me about what was in store for JFW16, which I was going to attend. It would be taking place in the tent located on the premises of Senayan City, one of the major shopping malls in South Jakarta. “We aim to elevate the Indonesian fashion labels to a world class level,” she said (these very words were also, in bold, in the brochure of the festival, written in Bahasa but with a lot of English interspersed). Svida Alisjahbana was passionate about the mentoring role that JFW had taken on, as a facilitator of Indonesian brands and designers, “incubating and propelling our fashion talent.” Indeed, by September 2015 JFW seemed to be very strongly established in this mentoring role, through competitions and awards. Apart from taking over the management of the Lomba Perancang Mode (LPM), the Fashion Design Competition that was established in 1979 by the Femina Group as a biennial competition, and which now culminates with the Dewi Fashion Knights Award (named after the magazine Dewi ), given on the last day of the fashion week, JFW also runs the Lomba Perancang Aksesori (LPA), the Accessories Design

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Competition, which began in 2008; the Cleo Fashion Awards, also established in 2008, whose winner is sent on a scholarship to study at Istituto Marangoni, Milan; and the LPM Entrepreneur Award, established in 2011 in collaboration with Grazia magazine and Istituto Marangoni, where the winner goes to attend a short course. Other competitions which, according to Svida Alisjahbana, are part of the nurturing of talent that JFW has taken on to be its mission, are the Australia-Indonesia Designer Award, established in 2014, which aims to introduce Indonesian designers to the Australian market and Australian brands to Indonesia.13 There are then the awards, such as the Pia Alisjahbana Award (named after Svida’s formidable mother), which honors, every five years, individuals and institutions who have contributed in an inspiring way to the Indonesian fashion industry—the designer Biyan Wanaatmadja and The Goods Group won the first one in 2017. There is the New Fashion Force Award, also involving short courses at Istituto Marangoni, and the very prestigious Woolmark Prize of which the Femina Group is a nominating body.14 But the pride and glory of Svida Alisjahbana in her role as Chair of JFW is Indonesia Fashion Forward, a collaboration that began in 2011 with the Centre for Fashion Enterprise at London College of Fashion (LCF), University of the Arts, London, mediated by the British Council in collaboration with BEKRAF, a government body for the Creative Industries, which partially sponsors it. There are three levels to the programme: New Fashion Pioneer, which aims to support emerging designers; New Fashion Venture, which aims to provide business know-how; and New Market Entry, which provides support to turn into an effective entrepreneur. The British Council helps with positioning Indonesian talent in key shows and placements in the UK. Oxford Fashion Studio and Fashion Scout, enterprises that aim to showcase international emerging designers during the twice-a-year London Fashion Week, are also involved.15 Indeed, the British Council has claimed a considerable role for itself in JFW, following its brokerage of the partnership with LCF. At JW16 they presented Topshop Fashion East designer Ed Marler (last-minute replacement for the widely advertised Bobby Abley, whose menswear collection at LFW16 had been acclaimed) and London-based Indonesian designer Rinda Salmun, in collaboration with Salmun’s Fashion PR company, Bridge Fashion Asia. The British Council also presented the Sustainable Fashion Forum featuring celebrated sustainable fashion writer and journalist Lucy Siegle, co-producer of the documentary film The True Cost,16 which was screened at JFW16, and showcased the collaboration between busana muslim designer Dian Pelangi, who had just completed a residency at LCF, with LCF designers Odette Steele and Nelly Rose Stewart, enabled by the Fashion Forward programme. An important offshoot of Fashion Forward is Fashion Link, also a Femina Group initiative, which hosts “Indonesia’s best designers,” handpicked by Fashion Forward. Fashion Link has a presence at Senayan City Mall, with a showroom on the first floor of the mall.17

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Doing a runway show at JFW does not come cheap. The figure for JFW19, in the print leaflet for applicants, was given as within the Rp. 200.000.000– 300.000.000 range plus 10 percent tax (roughly $14,000–21,000). Brands and designers seek sponsorship or, in the case of younger designers, might share a show. A separate fee is paid for exhibiting in the “market.” Every year JFW strives to host initiatives that will help bring together brands, designers, and buyers. It seems clear, at least from the literature, that the JFW shows are not intended solely as an exercise in branding, selling internationally is seen to be a priority. After all, JFW styles itself with the title “Gateway to the global fashion market.” It remains to be seen, however, how long-lasting the links forged with international buyers are. The Indonesian brand Major Minor, for example, sold in the UK through Harvey Nichols in London in 2014, but when I made telephone enquiries in early 2018, I was advised that Harvey Nichols no longer stocked the brand. I was later told in Jakarta that much depends on individual buyers who may be replaced by others with a different agenda. But I also got the sense that the prestige of having one’s collection shown or even briefly stocked overseas in a “major” fashion capital was even more important than ensuring continuity of sales. There is also a problem concerning sustained production and a lack of infrastructure to ensure support to small brands. I shall address this at a later juncture. The JFW programme is complemented by talks and seminars, a feature of any fashion week as such. In keeping with the sustainability theme in 2015, there was a talk presented by the Kementerian Perindustrian (Ministry of Industry), in which designers Merdi Sihombing and Friederich Herman discussed “Beginning Ethical Fashion,” and in which they addressed the issue of working with weavers in ways that would preserve their cultural values and ensure a livelihood. Sustainability was indeed on the Ministry’s agenda in 2015, and it was also addressed at ID.FW15 in March of that year. One of the main issues regarding sustainability is that ethical ways of working and sustainability go hand in hand, they are not separate, as some people tend to believe. Cotton may be used for tenun ikat and it may be woven following an age-old technique but it may not necessarily be organic cotton, and some of the dyes used while working with traditional dying techniques may not be so natural after all. This is a sustainability issue that also raises ethical concerns, and it is one of the major challenges fashion faces globally. Indonesia has always been a trading hub from centuries back, rather than a producer, and local production of fibers is not so widespread. Also, overall, in terms of pollution, a major ethical issue in itself, Indonesia has not done too well. As Indonesian forest fires rage, in the active deforestation pursued for agriculture or in connection with land conflicts, as indeed was the case in 2015, much of Southeast Asia suffers from periodic haze with extreme levels of pollution. It is all part of a cycle of which the fashion industry is a participant.18

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JFW has tended to be IPMI dominated, in terms of its choice of designers, but the relationship between IPMI and APPMI is much more cordial than in the past. Thus, some prominent IPMI designers will not disdain showing their collection at ID.FW, whereas JFW16 had a slot for APPMI designers and apparently this now occurs every year. Some of the JFW16 shows were by graduates of the Jakarta-based fashion schools, such as ESMOD, La Salle, and Binus Northumbria.19 Acknowledging the growing importance of busana muslim and its potential for export, JFW16 had a show by the Islamic Fashion Design Council and a talk followed by a show on the theme “Asia Rising,” by the busana muslim designers of the group Hijabers Moms, sponsored by the Kementerian Perindustrian Indonesia.20 The show by Itang Yunasz, a veteran designer, was also dominated by jilbabs, as he has now fully embraced busana muslim and, of course, Dian Pelangi and Anniesa Hasibuan, both known internationally as busana muslim designers, also presented their newer collections—the scandal of Anniesa Hasibuan’s fraud not yet being in the public domain at that point in time. A fun show, but nevertheless a significant one, was the Pesona Sisterhood Runway, with inspirational women as models, curated by Pesona, one of the magazines of the Femina Group aimed at a readership of women over the age of thirty-five. One of the models was none other than the diminutive but very powerful Svida. This was a nod to the growing global movement about recognizing older and high-powered women, aspirational role models for future generations. There was also an acknowledgment of body positivity, hosting an event in the Senayan City atrium called Cita Cinta Change-Lebration, a word play inspired by the made-up word “flawsome,” coined by American supermodel Tyra Banks. It was an invitation to all women to try some makeup lessons to embrace their uniqueness and make themselves beautiful, linked to a competition, out of which ten women would be selected for a runway show and Instagram videos, anointed as new fashionistas. In an article published by The Jakarta Post in 2016, on the eve of the ninth JFW, Svida Alisjahbana wondered why Indonesian labels were not yet sustainable and why they had not yet attained international success, attempting to deal with two separate issues in one go. Success is all to do with curation, she concluded with great conviction, adding that, “it really depends on the methodology and the credibility of the curators, who must be legitimate, with proven expertise and without conflicts of interest. Also crucial is the international connectivity of the curators and trainers to the crucial international fashion stakeholders (organizers of other fashion weeks, fashion schools, trade shows and international media, among others). These capabilities take years to develop. This is why support from various parts of our government is essential.”21 One wonders, however, whether curation alone can be effective in ensuring sustainability, and whether invoking some generic government support to

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professionalize curation is enough. With regard to sustainability, Indonesia is far from being on the verge of receiving a fashion sustainability prize, despite the dazzling curation of JFW and its highlighting of the need for sustainability through a range of well-placed talks. As to why international recognition of Indonesian designers and Indonesian fashion brands is not forthcoming, young Indonesian designers who annually graduate from the several fashion schools and colleges in Jakarta and the rest of the country, as well as more seasoned designers and brands, all claim to struggle to get adequate infrastructural support for their labels and to maintain competitive production levels. Connection with international buyers remains erratic, despite the genuine brokering effort of JFW. The designers that move overseas and open showrooms become part of the fashion landscape of their country of choice, and though they might retain some of their production in Indonesia, they might also move it elsewhere. In 2017, Svida Alisjahbana was able to forge a range of newer international links, by channeling a genuine desire to engage with a more ethical fashion through the “Fair” platform, with the support of the Swedish Embassy and IKEA. She has also secured intermittent international coverage for JFW, for example, through the Daily Mail Australia online, ensuring that JFW would be described as the biggest annual fashion event in Southeast Asia, and also through Vogue India.22 Perhaps expert curation is, after all, a “winning formula.”

Indonesia Fashion Week The eponymous Poppy Dharsono has been associated with Indonesian fashion, one way or another, since the 1970s. She graciously agreed to meet me for an interview in October 2015 at a very fashionable restaurant. A former IPMI member, Poppy Dharsono has been Chair of APPMI, which she founded, already twice,23 and is also President of ID.FW, which she kickstarted in 2012. Unlike IPMI, whose membership requirements almost by default exclude young designers who are still building up their brand and need more exposure and experience, APPMI extends a friendly hand to them and through ID.FW it allows a range of designers to present their collections, bringing together the experienced and the less experienced, which means that presentation standards are not even, as some IPMI stalwarts would contend. The Association had, in 2018, 185 members, drawn from Java, Bali, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. The theme of ID. FW18 was cultural identity, linking fashion to tourist destinations from which the designers would draw inspiration.24 The brochure with the schedule of the runway shows carried an article by former Dewi fashion editor Amy Wirabudi, who talked about the meanings to be found in the saying “fashion statement,” and linked the phrase to the Indonesian expression “bahasa menunjukkan

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bangsa” (language makes a nation), highlighting its cultural significance, underpinned by (national) identity. Throughout the brochure, somewhat unusual in this respect, a series of short essays, discussed culture and social identity, with an emphasis on trying to define identity as dynamic (“identity is not a given; it grows out of a nation’s struggles and life cycles”) and making the point that the Indonesian fashion industry is an expression of the diversity of Indonesian culture and that the Indonesian government “must be able to recognize fashion’s export potential, which in turn will help the nation to achieve greater prosperity.”25 After this acknowledgment of the social and cultural ties, it comes as no surprise that busana muslim had the lion’s share of ID.FW18’s shows and among the exhibitors’ stands, in view of the claims it lays at being representative of Indonesian cultural identity, coupled with the promise of profitable exports through reaching out to Muslim consumers globally. The participation of the general public at ID.FW18 was remarkable. Tickets were relatively affordable and visitors were lured by the opportunity to buy directly from the brands at some discount. All the fashion shows were, as usual, by invitation, at least for seats in the first four to five rows. ID.FW is regularly held at the large Jakarta Convention Center in Senayan, with room for more than 500 exhibitors and a very large auditorium for runway shows. ID.FW18 was not unusual in having a cultural theme as this tends to be a trademark of ID.FW. In this regard it carries the torch of the 1996 first fashion week. Every year culture is explored by the designers in different ways. So, for example in 2015, it was in conjunction with sustainability, at the time a concern on the agenda of the Ministry of Industry. However, sustainability tended to be seen primarily as meaning that the small-scale artisanal production of traditional textiles should be boosted. JFW reprised the sustainability theme in October 2015, as discussed in the previous section. With Poppy Dharsono at the helm of ID.FW, “unity in diversity” is indeed a guiding principle that she follows most conscientiously. Government sponsorship at ID.FW18 was not simply gratefully acknowledged, it was apparent in the micro-management of the shows and in the events built around them, and in the large number of ministers, dignitaries, and politicians invited. ID.FW18 had a strong message to deliver. As the brochure says, “Indonesia Fashion Week 2018 offers itself as a way to reflect upon Indonesia’s rich fashion heritage and as a cultural celebration of a fashion industry that is rooted in a strong national identity.” The point to bear in mind is, however, that national identity in Indonesia is in a flux, in these post-reformasi times.26 ID.FW18 was also rather special in that it concluded with an exclusive show that celebrated Poppy Dharsono’s forty years in fashion. More formal than the other runway shows, with a dress code for attendees that again encouraged them to wear “a touch of culture,” the show was skillfully choreographed and the clothes were modeled by all the girls and boys who had made it as finalists in the

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model competition. It also involved music performances. There was a special parade of Indonesian senior designers—Ghea Panggabean, an IPMI founder, was also among the designers who presented their collection as part of the Parade—and a closing ceremony, followed by a party at which wine and Balinese champagne were served. This was in keeping with Poppy Dharsono’s image as an elite cosmopolitan Indonesian woman, elegant and soignée, who had lived in France for some years (there was an abundance of French chansonniers classics belted out by the singers), and who had been inspired by French chic in her own designs but with her eyes firmly fixed on Indonesian textile heritage. As a tribute, some former Indonesian supermodels appeared in a section of Dharsono’s show, to the delight of the audience, wearing mother-of-the bride outfits (Okky Asokawati, currently a politician; Sarita Thaib who went back to modeling in 2015; and Mira Sayogo, now an entrepreneur). A small book about Poppy Dharsono was distributed among the attendees, with essays in Bahasa and in English, and photographs by Firman Ichsan.27 Throughout the book, the theme of culture, art, and identity was discussed at length, with the comment that “through her diligence Poppy helped to propel batik and national dresses into a wider trend in the 1980s and 1990s,” something that many Indonesian designers who worked in those decades could also rightly claim for themselves. As we saw in Chapter one, batik was part of the national dress policy of the New Order. But the most compelling statement in the book is that “Poppy now laments how national pride in traditional dresses is fading. People are happier to, for instance, adopt Middle Eastern style of clothing,” a clear reference to the wearing not just of jilbab, but of burqa and niqab (the latter designated chador in Indonesia, following the Iranian nomenclature).28 Although culture was the overhanging theme of ID.FW18, it was subdivided into Heritage, inspired by candi Borobudur; and Nature, inspired by Lake Toba in Sumatra; and Culture, represented by the islands of Flores and Labuan Bajo. Indeed, the most spectacular runway shows of ID.FW18 were the ones featuring textiles from Lake Toba and Komodo island, where the sheer beauty of the textiles overshadowed any flaw in design, composition, and styling—if you cook with quality ingredients, a friend said afterwards, food will always taste good. In terms of forging international links, ID.FW is not behind JFW. Through the visionary effort of Poppy Dharsono, ID.FW has been able to ensure a continuous collaboration with Accademia Koefia in Rome, a renowned international school for alta moda (couture) founded in 1913. Koefia focuses on teaching the art of constructing the pattern on the mannequin, following the French moulage (draping) method. Accademia Koefia has participated in ID.FW since 2013, presenting the work of its graduates and also offering a series of scholarships of one-year duration, as well as short courses, to the winners and runners-up of the annual Indonesian Young Fashion Designers Competition.29

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ID.FW also provides a platform for designers of neighboring Asian countries, and occasionally from further afield, to present their collections, once again in an attempt to initiate collaborations. But, as I was told by a senior designer who lives and works in Bali and participated in ID.FW18, despite everything ID.FW is primarily a branding exercise for designers and an opportunity to sell to the general public. It is not a trade show as such, which in his mind was the “real” purpose of a fashion week. This is, however, a criticism that has been leveled at the fashion week business model, even outside Indonesia, and which has been discussed in the press for some time now, as fashion weeks are no longer about buyers meeting brands. Writing in 2016, Chrisman-Campbell points out that “seasonal fashion shows are exhausting, expensive, and increasingly irrelevant – and many designers are opting out.”30 The fashion week is a model that needs updating and is no longer a way to get buyers, however it seems to be quite resilient and there is reluctance in abandoning it altogether because of its “spectacle value.” It is being transformed into a consumer fair, an opportunity for branding and a golden chance to turn fashion into “an image of capital.”31 ID.FW certainly seems to perform rather well in presenting a spectacle of fashion. Participation in ID.FW is not as costly as JFW. Website figures for 2017 indicated Rs 25.000.000 plus tax (about $1750) for ten outfits on the runway. Exhibitors’ boots were priced at Rs 17.000.000 (about $1190) plus tax. The novelty about ID.FW18 was the introduction of a model search through a model competition, open to girls and boys. Not to be outdone, JWF, as mentioned earlier, also staged a model competition for JWF19, envisaged to be annual and, going beyond ID.FW efforts, attempting to link up with Asia’s Next Top Model, the reality TV show launched by supermodel Tyra Banks in the US in 2003 as America’s Next Top Model and franchised to different parts of the world. Like JFW, ID.FW courts international press coverage. ID.FW18 was featured in the China Economic Daily with live streaming at the same time as Shanghai Fashion Week 2018 and Beijing Fashion Week 2018.32

The IPMI Trend Show The two fashion weeks I have discussed, annually held in Jakarta, dominate the landscape of Indonesian fashion but they are not the only shows and it could even be argued that other more significant shows take place elsewhere. Bali Fashion Week for example is noteworthy, pairing as it does fashion with carnival and food, a means to attract and entertain tourists, Bali’s main source of revenue. In Jakarta alone, one finds a range of fashion events, from the annual IPMI Trend Show to the runway shows held at various malls, such as Senayan City and Plaza Indonesia, and various other fashion events under the auspices of

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magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar or trunk shows presented by individual designers. For example, Biyan,33 one of the most senior Indonesian designers, no longer participates in fashion weeks, and presents his collections in exclusive settings with a select invited audience. Similarly, Auguste Soesastro, though he did one season in 2012 at ID.FW upon his return to Indonesia from New York, where he first launched his exclusive couture line Kraton in 2008, prefers to participate in smaller shows—thus, in November 2015 he was one of the designers involved in the “Wings of Change,” a fashion event that was a collaborative effort between the skincare brand SK-II and Harper’s Bazaar at The Dharmawangsa Hotel, a luxury hotel in upscale Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta. However, Soesastro—as also the “slow fashion”34 brand Sejauh Mata Memandang (As Far As Your Eyes Go)—might opt for art venues, with shows that may not even make use of models, but display the clothes, which have a strong architectural quality. One of such shows was held at the gallery dia.lo.gue in South Jakarta in 2016. The advantage of participating in a non-seasonal show that is not part of a fashion week, is that the designers have a greater degree of control on how the show unfolds. Plaza Indonesia, the premier Jakarta mall, stages its own fashion week, showcasing fashion from the Indonesian and international brands it represents. In December 2017, it hosted the first Digital Fashion Week (DFW) in Jakarta. Founded by Singaporean Charina Widjaja in 2012, DFW has hosted a number of Indonesian designers together with international ones. It works on the principle of a show that is live-streamed with a “see now, buy now” policy implemented through the DFW website. DFW aims to create a more inclusive fashion system, with a global interactive potential, exploiting the power of digital technology to build a strong community, as Elena Bara notes in her article for Vogue Italia.35 Ahead of his peers in his show presented on November 6, 2018, which I was able to attend, Biyan implemented this very model, marking his collaboration with e-commerce platform JD Indonesia. Senayan City Mall regularly hosts fashion shows, sometimes pairing them with a fashion exhibition, as was the case for the twelfth edition of Fashion Nation in 2018, which had runway shows36 and an exhibition by IPMI designers on the indigo blue theme, with work by a host of well-known IPMI members, from Carmanita to Ghea Panggabean. The indigo theme was selected because of the Indigo Tinctoria plant, known as tarum in Indonesia, used to make the deep blue of ikat textiles and also in batik designs. The IPMI Trend Show is in a class of its own. It is an annual show that forecasts the trend for the forthcoming year. It started in 1994, following IPBMI resurgence in 1993 as IPMI. As Boehlke notes, the IPMI Trend Show, which continued the trend shows of IPBMI, was at inception a model of industry cooperation between designers, textile manufacturers, and department stores, which agreed to promote the designs in their stores (the first of such partnerships

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was with the Metro department store).37 Since then, these partnerships may not have been so easily defined but the IPMI Trend Show has continued to present to the media its annual interpretation of fashion trends. For 2016, in collaboration with BEKRAF, the IPMI Trend Show focused on “Made in Indonesia” as a fashion identity, demonstrating the diversity of the country and aspiring to be a label of quality, in the same way as “Made in Italy” is perceived to be in the global fashion imaginary. The Trend Show also explored a number of innovative ways of presenting fashion, beyond the traditional runway show. I participated as a model for Tri Handoko38 in the Trend Show 2016, which took place on December 1, 2015 at Senayan City, with sponsorship from Qubicle, a media company affiliated with Net.TV. The theme for the year was ethereal, with reference to the unreal and the imagined. But as IPMI designers said at the press conference at SKYE Grand Indonesia, on November 18, 2015, “We want the unreal to become real, by returning to its essence,” in other words, promoting the “real” fashion style in accordance with “the essence” of clothing. IPMI felt that current fashion trends were being dictated by economic imperatives, losing sight of the essence of fashion, a statement that is open to interpretation. IPMI envisioned the Trend Show 2016 to be not only about trends but to display a responsible fashion, a hint at wanting to embrace some forms of “slow” fashion or at the very least showing some awareness of it. Tri Handoko, at the time Chair of IPMI, added that, “this year we are also focusing on fashion presentation, the guests can get up close to every collection that is displayed, the presentation is more personal and does not follow the rigidity of a fashion week show.”39 The show I was in, entitled Mind Game, was an installation with a film by Ajeng Dewi Svastiari, film and video maker, stylist, fashion director, and occasional model, a long-time collaborator of Tri Handoko. Models came into the room in darkness and sat on the floor, then dimmed lights went on and Tri Handoko also came in and sat cross-legged on the floor watching the film while it was projected. He had not seen the film before that moment. The film contained images of mourning and a letter-poem to his father, to whom he was greatly attached and who had just passed away, while he had been working on the collection—this really resonated with me, as I had received news that my own mother was very ill and would not live much longer. I had been paired up with androgynous model Darell Ferhostan, originally from Sulawesi, and sat with my head resting on his shoulder. As the lights came fully back on, Tri Handoko walked up to me and extended his hand to help me stand up, then exited. Everyone in the room was able to come up to us and take pictures, while we stood motionless. It was quite overwhelming. Then the lights went off again and we quickly left. Backstage, we could hear the rapturous applause. We wore tailored suits in a monochromatic palette, with cut-out sleeveless blouses, accessorized by Rinaldy A. Yunardi. Afterwards, when asked about the concept, Tri Handoko said that the collection and the presentation had been

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inspired by the many emotions that our minds control, and that was where the title Mind Game came from. My presence was seen by most people as signifying a mother figure, an older woman holding on to a young man, the latter a possible projection of Tri Handoko’s self. Long white hair like mine is uncommon among Indonesian women, who feel the pressure of coloring their hair and would not dare do otherwise, for fear of “smelling of the village.” By using me in his show, Tri Handoko was sending out a complex message about filial piety, as well as returning to the essence of fashion and that of life, whose culmination is death, highlighting the myriad emotions we experience throughout our life journey, embodied by the audience pouncing on us with their cameras, in keeping with the theme of the event.40 It was also a nod to the steadily growing presence of silver-haired, older models in international fashion, a trend of which Tri Handoko was well aware.

Fashion-as-art By fashion-as-art I mean those practices of presenting fashion as if it were art, through clothes exhibitions, but I also include collaborations between fashion designers and visual artists, or fashion designers and performers. Theatrical costumes, often made in collaboration with painters (Leon Bakst famously dressed on and off stage Mme Ida Rubinstein of the Ballet Russes),41 can be seen as an area of specialization within fashion design (and one to which Indonesian designers are increasingly paying more attention) but there are crossovers between costumes and high fashion, as also, occasionally, with ready-to-wear.42 Whether fashion is to be regarded as art is a moot point. Opinions are multiple and there is no real consensus. It depends very much on what one views as art, an issue that has been widely problematized.43 The boundary marked by the utility principle that some people invoke as a way to differentiate between art and fashion is very porous, especially when fashion enters the gallery space, as indeed it has done, particularly through the burgeoning museum exhibitions since the end of the twentieth century and the creation of specialist fashion museums worldwide, from New York to Tokyo. There is certainly a synergy, a connection, and a dialog between fashion and art, and they share “style” as a conceptual framework that underpins them both.44 What motivates this newer exploration of alternative ways of presenting fashion, enabling a perception of fashion as akin to art, is the growing dissatisfaction with the blockbuster show format of the fashion week and its outof-reach costs, not always covered by sponsors. It is a global concern, as evidenced by the international locations of these more off-beat ways to present collections.45

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Alternatives to the runway show are not per se new, British designer Alexander McQueen was known for his ability to turn fashion into a critical tool, which he did most notably in his 2000 installation Voss staged in a disused warehouse. They have also been seen within the context of fashion weeks, fully absorbed by and endorsed by the fashion establishment, e.g. the installations of Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel.46 The earlier discussed IPMI Trend Show 2016 is an example of how, within Indonesia, mainstream fashion is attempting to assimilate these newer practices to revitalize current presentation modes. Young Indonesian fashion designers are not only aware of newer developments and search for alternatives occurring overseas, they are also driven to embrace them because the fashion week configuration does not suit them and actually holds them back through its prohibitive costs and the highly competitive sponsorship system. Contemporary Indonesian designers often train abroad, are familiar with the critical literature of fashion studies as a discipline, are aware of experimentation as it occurs in larger fashion centers and better-known fashion capitals, and are finding ways of responding, to be on trend, yet mindful of their own local context. Collaborations with art galleries seem to be the preferred choice of a number of designers, as already seen with Soesastro’s exhibition at dia.lo.gue in 2016. While I was in Jakarta in 2015, the collaboration between Major Minor, a successful young brand with an international presence, particularly in Australia, and acclaimed visual artist Eko Nugroho, who had already worked with Louis Vuitton in 2013 on a series of limited edition scarves, was presented as part of Nugroho’s solo exhibition Landscape Anomaly at Salihara, a South Jakarta art venue known for supporting new ventures and ideas and projecting itself as a community (Komunitas Salihara). Major Minor’s collection incorporated some of the elements regarded as typical of Nugroho, his signature style, namely eyes and also masked faces, which he deploys as “windows of knowledge” and a way to reflect on the experiences of his post-reformasi generation. The collaboration attracted some criticism as it did not do justice to Nugroho’s complexity, and Nugroho acknowledged that there had been adaptations and compromises, and the collaboration could not be regarded in the same way as his personal work.47 Similarly, Balinese designer Phangsanny, specializing in bridal wear and based in Ubud, Bali, and Jakarta, working with more than fifteen artists, was featured at dia.lo.gue throughout June 2015 as part of La Pèche Noir, an exhibition attempting to explore creativity in a variety of techniques on the theme of bittersweet love, shown again at Grand Indonesia Mall in October 2015. The gallery Fashion First in South Jakarta offers a space to emerging brands not only to retail but to have fashion installations. It is a small space and the installation format is welcomed by the customers who have the chance to see the designs up close. I attended one of such installations in December 2015.

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Perhaps one of the most intriguing and innovative collaborations has been that between Yogyakarta-based fashion designer Lulu Lutfi Labibi who has worked with Indieguerrillas, an artistic collective of contemporary performers, also from Yogyakarta. Their work has toured and was seen in Singapore and in Seoul, with workshops on upcycling given by Lulu, who specializes in transforming used clothing, pairing them with the humble lurik cloth of Central Java, traditionally worn by villagers, and relying on the moulage technique for cutting. The collaboration with Indieguerrillas began in 2015 with a performance at ArtJog, one of the biggest international contemporary art events in the country, of Petruk Jadi Supermodel (Petruk becomes supermodel), Petruk being a clown character from the wayang, with models styled like Petruk strolling around the city. The performance seen in Singapore in 2017, entitled Datang Untuk Kembali (Arriving to Depart) was another example of street performance, with a procession of twenty model-performers, accompanied by gamelan instruments, walking around the Gilman Barracks, ending at the Mizuma Gallery. It was inspired by the traditional sekaten procession in the Yogyakarta Palace square (the alun-alun), to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. The turning of fashion into a performance or performance art seems to have occurred quite organically within Indonesia, where there is a rich tradition of highly sophisticated performing arts and an ingrained love for music and dance performance among people of all social classes, with a great diversity of performing traditions among disparate ethnic groups. There is a tendency, even among the urban middle-classes, to punctuate everyday life celebrations with communal performances, be it a birth, a wedding, or just a party, as the performing arts have had a major role in society “displaying power, affirming social relations and celebrating shared values, while also providing a space for social and political critique.”48 The richness and intricate workmanship of the costumes deployed, for example by Javanese or Balinese dancers, are viewed as integral to the performance spectacle and add to the enjoyment of the audiences, who admire the performance abilities of the performers and the artistry of the costume makers. Conventional runway shows often make use of dance and music, turning the clothes, by default, into costumes—designer Anne Avantie is well known for inviting star dancers, singers, and actors to perform at her fashion shows. Through their performance, the appreciation of Avantie’s fashion, steeped in the kain kebaya urban tradition of post-independence Indonesia and rather theatrical in orientation, has steadily grown over the past four decades. Indeed her runway shows are among the most popular events of any fashion week and spare invites are hard to come by. Lulu Lutfi Labibi’s work with Indieguerrillas represents a new strand of imaginative collaborative efforts, rooted in the community and displaying an energetic commitment to contribute to larger societal issues (through recycling

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and upcycling and Lulu’s declared ethical concern in making clothes) that relocate fashion in a newly defined cultural space encompassing innovative genres of contemporary performing arts. There is no doubt that these newer cultural performances are all set to become a regular feature in the performing arts landscape of contemporary Indonesia.

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3 “MADE IN INDONESIA” FOR THE GLOBAL STAGE Designers and brands: Contemporary Indonesian fashion identity It is time to take a closer look at those directly involved in the making and in the performance of fashion in Indonesia today. Thus, I go on to discuss a handful of designers and their brands who, in my view, exemplify the diversity of the contemporary Indonesian fashion landscape. Their clothes tell different, sometimes contrasting, fashion stories: the boho-chic of Ghea Panggabean, created in the 1980s and constantly updated, has become emblematic of an enduring love affair with “heritage,” however that is defined; the ornate gowns made by Sebastian Gunawan (and his Italian wife Cristina Panarese) combine an Indonesian middle-class penchant for ostentation with the glamor and voluptuousness of an Italian alta moda; the structured architecture and understated elegance of Auguste Soesastro’s Kraton label reveals an aesthetics of refinement, sustained by ethical and ecological commitment; the stark lines and meditative quality of Tri Handoko’s inspired pieces conform to an innovative streak coupled with unexpected loyalty to his roots, translated into the black and white hand-painted batik of some of his creations; and Musa Widyatmojo, who has been making clothes since 1991, an active APPMI member, has great experience in several aspects of Indonesian apparel, especially corporate uniforms and costumes for dance performances. I include in this review of significant designers Susanna Perini, of Italian origin, now an Indonesian national, founder of the very successful Biasa label, based in Seminyak, Bali, a clothing line born as “resort wear” but now metamorphosed into urban cool chic. I also discuss Martha Ellen Nuttall, an English designer who trained in Indonesia at ESMOD and launched her label Martha Ellen in Jakarta, collaborating with Balinese textile manufacturers. After nine years in Indonesia, Martha Ellen returned to the UK in 2017. Her story is that of a young foreign designer in post-reformasi Indonesia, in sharp contrast with Perini, who began in the 1990s, with a firm base in Bali, where a cosmopolitan community of artists 41

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and creatives from all over the world and foreign co-owned import-export businesses had been established for decades, providing her with a very fruitful and conducive environment. Indeed, Vickers has discussed the link, in Bali, between tourism and clothing manufacturing, noting that it began to grow substantially in the 1970s: “expatriates or other foreigners married to Balinese provided design input, helping to mediate between foreign tastes and local materials. These same foreigners were also partners in marketing the garments overseas, in some cases in person, in others, through providing access to larger chains.”1 I am fully aware that my choice of designers is idiosyncratic and arbitrary, dictated by circumstances, namely, which designer was available to be interviewed and who was willing to engage in a conversation about Indonesian fashion, rather than casually arranging for me to obtain a copy of the latest look book. I am not claiming that the designers discussed here are the best one can find in Indonesia today, it is not for me to pass such a judgment, though I have to point out that all these designers have played a considerable role in the making of Indonesian fashion, for one reason or another. Many of them are award winners, and the way they envision Indonesian fashion on the global stage is significant. I am personally a great admirer of the exquisitely and delicately constructed creations of Biyan, and fully concur with those who hail him as a master, but apart from attending his trunk show in October 2015—for which even the invitation was very beautifully designed, with motifs that matched those of the clothes worn by gazelle-like models—I did not get a chance to talk to him at all.2 Similarly, Tex Saverio, who has dressed Hollywood stars and pop singer Lady Gaga, and who is firmly placed in the realm of couture, or Peggy Hartanto, whose minimalist clothes have been worn by American supermodel Gigi Hadid, or streetwear designer Patrick Owen, all known to me through their shows and write-ups in fashion magazines, are not discussed here for the reasons I have indicated, nor is a “veteran” designer such as Harry Dharsono, who was always out of the country whenever I was in Jakarta. As I said in an earlier chapter, I am steering away from a full discussion of busana muslim but, as some designers also have a “modest wear” line alongside “conventional” fashion, I shall mention it when relevant. Boundaries seem to be rather porous, however, something that in the Western world is not quite understood, viewing the whole issue of Muslim wear in a black and white perspective, leading to constant faux pas on the part of the Western establishment. In Indonesia it has tended to be perceived as a matter of styling, a choice personal to the wearer. Balinese-based Milo, of Milo’s Batik, a Milanese naturalized Indonesian, said at a press conference held at ID.FW18 that his flowing batik dresses can be nonchalantly thrown over a tiny bikini by a wearer

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on a Sardinian beach or, with a long dark-colored slip worn under the dress and paired with a jilbab, they can become an item of busana muslim, which is why his brand regularly sells in Malaysia3 and in Middle Eastern countries. However, this versatility is no longer regarded as a viable solution. Janna Soekasah Joesoef, co-director with sister Amanda of Ghea Fashion Studio, founded by designer Ghea Panggabean, claims that it is not enough to differentiate “conventional” fashion from busana muslim only by way of styling, advocating for the brand a “special and exclusive Muslim line to demonstrate that modest clothing can be high-end fashion, elegant and gorgeous,” whereas Amanda adds that “an exclusive busana muslim line is also about spreading a message of peace and unity in our diverse country through fashion, therefore developing a contemporary and fashionable modest wear is very much in keeping with our ethos as a brand to celebrate diversity.”4 I am also not focusing specifically on designers of “indie” streetwear, the latter discussed by Luvaas as a “fusion of fine art, graffiti, graphic design, and readyto-wear,” allied to the international “slow fashion” movement.5 Streetwear in Indonesia, aimed at teenage youth, has been linked with the blogger explosion, as noted in Chapter four. In its quest to be perceived as being aligned with global street fashion, indie streetwear has developed an ambivalent relationship with more established high-end Indonesian design labels, with which it has been vying for international attention, and by which indie designers have ended up being absorbed or quashed, as Luvaas notes, falling into the trap of “insipid genericism.”6 A streetwear-inspired art fusion, reinterpreting with greater sophistication the anti-essentialist rebranding that Luvaas talks about, is found in the work of a designer such as Lulu Lutfi Labibi, whom I discussed in the previous chapter. Lulu Labibi has been able to circumvent that very genericism Luvaas bemoans, embracing a streetwear vibe but taking it to the next level. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of the rather remarkable case of Anniesa Hasibuan, who is not a designer but posed as one, fooling everyone outside Indonesia with her daring attitude and who was jailed for fraud and money laundering in 2018, after a meteoric rise that barely lasted two years. I regard her case as relevant because all the misconceptions regarding Indonesian fashion design and also, to an extent, “modest wear” made in Indonesia, were projected upon her by the “arbiters of taste” of international fashion, unable to distinguish the genuine article from the fake. She self-exoticized and was in turn exoticized, and it was this strong orientalist take that rendered her work appealing in the US and Europe. She was also caught up in the dark side of the global fashion system, the network of those that for a considerable amount of money, exploit the eagerness of designers from developing countries to receive acclaim and recognition in the capitals of Euro-American fashion. In the metaphorical mirror I am holding up on global fashion through my study of contemporary Indonesian fashion, Anniesa Hasibuan is the warped reflection on its surface.

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Ghea Panggabean and “ethnic” chic Ghea Panggabean (aka Ghea Soekasah, Ghea Sukarya, or simply Ghea) is of mixed parentage, with a West Javanese father and a Dutch mother. She grew up partly in Europe, partly in Indonesia, studied fashion in London, returned to live in Indonesia in 1979, and the following year started making clothes “in a garage with two sewing machines and one seamstress.”7 In London she used to hang out with her friends on the eponymous King’s Road, hub of alternative fashion and culture in the 1960s and 1970s, and witnessed the emergence of punk. It is a time which made a strong impression on her, allowing her to develop a streak of quirkiness in her approach to fashion and styling. Back in Indonesia, though based in Jakarta, Ghea used to travel frequently to Bali where she befriended and forged lasting relationships with many members of the cosmopolitan artistic and bohemian community on the island. In love with India and the tie-dye from Rajasthan and Gujarat, while in Bali she discovered the beauty of the “rainbow coloured” pelangi (also known as jumputan, depending on the area it comes from, obtained through a tie and dye technique), when she bought an antique scarf from Palembang, which she initially mistook for an Indian tie-dye. It still hangs in her atelier to remind her of “how it all began.” It was one of those serendipitous moments that signaled a major change in the way she thought about and made clothes. Until then she had experimented with lurik from Central Java—the same lurik that many years later was to be taken up by Lulu Lutfi Labibi as his trademark cloth—but jumputan/pelangi clothes, rendered in highly nuanced print, soon became Ghea’s signature style, and with it Ghea’s “boho-chic” was born. Following her discovery of jumputan she immersed herself into a study and exploration of the textile heritage of Indonesia, which she fiercely loves, experimenting with anything that took her fancy. The printing is meticulously done, nowadays digital, and always embellished with a handmade finishing. Ghea always makes it clear that she feels totally Indonesian, even though she fully acknowledges “a cosmopolitan outlook” because of her mixed parentage and nomadic childhood.8 She has the knack of reimagining ways in which traditional fabrics, textiles, and motifs can be used. Her styling can be unconventional and yet it always works. She manages to achieve a perfect balance, so that it is never overdone. Her novel style captured the imagination of Jakarta’s upper middle-class, fashionable young women aspiring to emulate the irreverent “ethnic” look that came from Europe and America but seeking to add a distinctive Indonesian touch. The othering that underpins the label “ethnic,” did not seem to trouble them at all, unflinchingly embracing the ambiguity of Western fashion terminology. Suddenly, in the 1980s, all fashionistas from Jakarta and beyond wanted to wear Ghea’s “creations with-a-bohemian-touch”—jumputan had become hip and chic.

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In the early years Ghea was not averse to appearing in runway shows, modeling her own clothes and her charismatic presence and deportment made the “ethnic chic” even more appealing. Currently, her daughter (A)Manda and, occasionally, twin sister Janna, model for her (and for other designers too), even though they are forty years old, definitely “old” by Indonesian modeling standards. Educated in the Netherlands, they have been working closely with Ghea to ensure the continuity of the brand. Janna is in charge of Ghea Kids, the clothing line Ghea has developed for children and young teens, whereas Manda has recently launched a resort wear line, to which both Ghea and Janna have contributed. Ghea Fashion Studio has also diversified into lifestyle, designing tableware. Ghea has dressed royalty, celebrities, and ordinary women alike. She has been the recipient of several awards from Indonesia and internationally. In 1986 she was named as one of the Best of ASEAN Designers in Singapore, and the following year she received the Apparel Trophy as the Best Ready-To-Wear Designer in Indonesia. She has also been one of the designers most frequently sent or invited overseas on a cultural mission, as for example in Italy, Milan, and then Rome in 2013. The latter was a collaboration with Accademia Koefia, with a team of creatives, which included the contemporary dancer and choreographer Martinus Miroto, from Yogyakarta, known for his role as Setio in the internationally acclaimed art film Opera Jawa (2006) directed by Gavin Nugroho. In 2006, Ghea presented a highly praised busana muslim collection at the first Islamic Fashion Festival (IFF) in Kuala Lumpur, and she has regularly been invited to be a participant since that first show. IFF was created by Dato’ Sri Rezza Shah in Malaysia to highlight the “multidimensionality” of Islam. Ghea is not herself Muslim, having converted to Christianity following her marriage to Baringin Panggabean, a Batak Christian, but in acceptance of the “unity in diversity” principle, she is comfortable with designing for women who wish to observe the Islamic code of modesty in female attire. However, as I mentioned, there is still a lively discussion in Indonesia on what modesty means, as not everyone agrees on sopan being modeled on shari’a norms. The collection Ghea presented at ID.FW18 was entitled Horas (after the Batak traditional greeting) and was inspired by the Toba Batak textiles from Lake Toba. She used ulos cloth and the typical Gorga motif in red and white, combined with black, which is part of the decoration of a traditional Batak house. This was translated into contemporary fashion by printing the ulos motifs on a variety of materials. Thus, in addition to using the original ulos weaving for the scarves, ulos was also printed on satin, chiffon, organza, and jersey prompting a fashion editor to write that Ghea’s mixing and matching is always done “with an eye to comfort, without foregoing beauty.”9 With exceptions, Ghea’s clothes are not usually fitted, so they can be easily worn by a range of body types, styled to suit diverse body shapes. In the autumn of 2018, Ghea showed her collections in Sofia, Bulgaria, at Sofia Fashion Week, receiving acclaim from a crowd largely unfamiliar

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with Indonesian fashion and eager to find out more. It was an attempt by the Indonesian foreign mission in Sofia to introduce Bulgarians to contemporary Indonesian culture, something that Ghea is accustomed to, having become a national fashion symbol, the designer who, under the New Order, was most often chosen to represent the country abroad. She also participated, a week later, in Istanbul Fashion Week, returning to Turkey after a few years gap and presenting a well-received collection. Ghea does not own a factory herself but tends to work on a project basis with a range of existing textile factories with whom she has forged a relationship over the years. If she has a very large order, she relies on the factories in West Java or she may work with subcontractors. Production tends to be on a relatively small scale, with about one hundred people on the Ghea Fashion Studio payroll. Inhouse production includes making samples given to chosen subcontractors for the ready-to-wear “de luxe” to be sold through specific outlets, working on special collections for exclusive wear, and on the shoe collection, including the finishing beadwork and embroidery, also done in-house for quality control. Bespoke orders for special clients and special occasions, e.g. weddings, are also done in-house. The time leading up to Ramadan tends to be very busy with many specially ordered garments for entire families who follow the custom of wearing a whole new set of clothes all in the same style, a kind of “fashionable uniform”—Ghea’s own words—referring to the fact that father, mother, children, and grandchildren will be wearing the same prints, or color, or items from a specific collection to mark the occasion.10 The production model adopted by Ghea is actually followed by the majority of designers in Indonesia, with a few exceptions. It should be added here that a great number of home-workers are employed in the Indonesian fashion industry, mostly women who stitch and cut garments for factories and middlemen at home. Recently, there have been moves towards insuring such workers are receiving social protection subsidy (BPJS) or an annual bonus (THR), through the “responsible employer” campaign led by MAMPU.11 As for online sales, Ghea is still working on it. Her daughters are keen, Ghea herself hesitates, not “feeling too comfortable with technology,” as she says. But Ghea Fashion Studio has an Instagram presence and sells through it, which is increasingly becoming the norm within (and outside) Indonesia.

Sebastian Gunawan: Indo-Italian glamor and sensuality An ethnic Chinese from Jakarta, Sebastian embarked on a career in fashion after experimenting with fashion illustration for fun, as he showed an aptitude for

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drawing from a very early age. He initially studied at the Susan Budihardjo School, one of the oldest fashion colleges in the country, established in the early 1980s by fashion designer Susan Budihardjo. Sebastian then went to Los Angeles to train in the business aspects of fashion, and finally to Istituto Marangoni, Milan, where he met and then married Cristina Panarese, from Lecce, Southern Italy, who was also training in fashion design in Milan, following a dream that began in her teen years. They moved to Jakarta upon graduating and together they established their brand Sebastian Gunawan in 1993, subsequently adding other lines such as SebastianRed, Votum, and SebastianSposa (bridal). During the anti-Chinese riots of 1996, Sebastian and Cristina contemplated moving out of Indonesia, unsure of what was to come but eventually decided to stay. Though the brand is named Sebastian Gunawan, in all my conversations with them and with their daughter Alessia, a young fashion photographer currently based in Switzerland, I was repeatedly told that theirs is a collaboration, bringing together “an Indonesian sensibility with an Italian sense of glamor,” evident in their collections. This cannot be explained away by the fact one is Indonesian and the other is Italian, rather, it is to do with their formation at Marangoni, the years they spent in Milan, and also their frequent trips to Europe, whereby their work displays a twenty-first century cosmopolitan imagination that opens us up to “change and alterity.”12 The brand’s trademark is its exquisitely cut, bespoke gowns, encrusted with jewelry and heavily embroidered, opulent, and irresistible. The Sebastian Gunawan brand has an impressive list of awards to its credit, such as the International Apparel Federation Young Designer, Barcelona 2004 and Favourite Designer Award from Dewi, which Sebastian Gunawan consecutively won from 2000 to 2004. From 2006 to 2008 the Gunawans participated in the IFF, demonstrating their versatility through designing chic busana muslim and winning a prize for their collection in 2008, the Islamic Fashion Appreciation Award. A member of the Asian Couture Federation, established in 2013 to promote couture in Asia and with links to several European countries, Sebastian Gunawan received an award from the Federation in 2015, acknowledging him as the Best Couturier from Indonesia, an award he shares with Cristina.13 Sebastian Gunawan’s shows are rather lavish, with striking themes that encapsulate the pair’s inspiration, and with a touch of ironic self-orientalizing,14 as in the The Treasures From the East collection, presented in February 2016 on the eve of Chinese New Year, in which Chineseness and “chinoiserie” were invoked. In November of the same year, Gunawan presented another extravagant show named after Marchesa Luisa Casati Stampa, the Italian-born enigmatic and singularly eccentric aristocrat from the time of the Belle Epoque, who claimed of aspiring to be a living work of art and who was loved, drawn, and painted by many famous artists. Her torrid affair with the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio turned her into the subject of many a gossip column of her time. Her audacity and utter disregard for conventions made her infamous. Casati is now a hallowed name in

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Euro-American fashion. From Poiret to Alexander McQueen, Galliano, and even van Noten, she has been hailed by all as a “Muse”—with a capital M. Sebastian and Cristina presented her to the Indonesian fashion cognoscenti with an element of playful exoticization. La Divina Marchesa was the name of the collection, altogether characterized by a strong theatricality. The clothes embodied glamor and riotous sumptuousness, simultaneously an ode to a fashion legend of the first half of the twentieth century and an empowering vision of flamboyant femininity. In an interview for the magazine Prestige Indonesia in February 2017, Sebastian Gunawan discusses the process of designing for brides and creating a luxurious ready-to-wear line of wedding gowns, SebastianSposa, fully acknowledging Cristina Panarese’s input as complementary. A major challenge, he says, relates to Indonesian wedding culture, whereby brides might require several wedding attires, rather than just one, to comply with the different moments of the day-long ceremony, with a mix of traditional and contemporary. The latter part of the interview touches on two issues that are actually inter-related—the Jakarta traffic,15 so horrendous as to make it difficult to fit in shopping and fitting in one day, which was the main motivation for opening an outlet at the centrally located Plaza Indonesia, and the role of social media in the bridal wear business, especially Instagram. Viewing dresses on the SebastianSposa Instagram account already gives brides-to-be an idea of what is available, a time saving device in traffic-cursed Jakarta. “Thanks to the internet,” he adds “every bride has now access to a lot of information,” and he goes on to cite the Duchess of Cambridge’s Alexander McQueen wedding dress— as indeed, more recently, the Duchess of Sussex aka Meghan Markle’s Givenchy gown—as having had extraordinary influence on wedding dresses worldwide.16

Auguste Soesastro: Classic chic and eco-friendliness The youngest son of economist Hadi Soesastro, Auguste17 lived for ten years in Australia, where he attended high school and then university. An architect by training, after a second degree in Film and Media he had the opportunity to work as a curator of Indonesian art at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, until he decided to pursue his love of fashion. He completed his studies as a designer at the Parisian École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, interned with several maisons in Paris, then moved to New York where he worked for Ralph Rucci for a term, eventually launching his own line, Kraton, in 2008 and participating in NYFW 2009, also showing his collection in Jakarta in the same year. Kraton continues today and has a very selective distribution to comply with the highest quality and ethical standards Soesastro has set for his brand.

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Following the death of his father in 2010, he returned to Indonesia permanently and started anew. He rose to fame when he was selected as one of a handful of designers who would meet the Obamas on their state visit in November 2010. Soesastro launched Kromo, a ready-to-wear line in 2012,18 now on hold, and in 2018 he added Wastu, which, as he says, is “a ready-to-wear statement that embodies nuanced elegance of architecture and effortless confidence”—wastu means architecture in Sanskrit-Javanese. Soesastro only designs for women, to date he has no plans to add menswear. Soesastro’s talent has firmly placed him among the rising stars of Indonesian contemporary fashion. He has a very refined taste, honed through his intimate knowledge of Javanese culture and of the batik textile tradition, of which his grandmother and mother were collectors and connoisseurs. Thus he has been able to translate into a contemporary idiom the unfathomable quality of alus, for centuries associated with Javanese court culture, steering away from literal interpretations of Indonesian culture.19 He is also committed to ethical and sustainable fashion, using natural fibers and undyed cloth, and is very supportive of his in-house production team, respectful of working hours, working conditions, and minimum wage requirements. Talking about his clothes, Soesastro will often use the word “ergonomic” with reference to the quality of the design. It matters to him that one should be able to move freely and truly make the clothes one’s own, in other words, functionality is important and should not be abandoned. Structure, proportion, and scale, which he learnt about as part of his architectural training, are key to the way his clothes are cut and stitched. An aesthetic of deceptive simplicity is his signature style, with Soesastro commenting rather dryly that in Indonesia women tend to dress like Christmas trees. In an interview he gave to Indonesia Tatler in 2017, he talked about this love of the understated, which, far from being “simple,” involves, as he maintains, technical perfection. He also states that “my design is more about empowerment, without intellectualising my design by saying so, because 95 per cent of my clients are career women. This means that I help dress independent women in their career for them to feel more confident and rooted.”20 But in another interview for Whiteboard Journal, he explains that his design is “intellectual” because the women he designs for are intellectual women with confidence in their own skin and the “intellectual” quality of his style is conveyed by “clothing [that] is well constructed and appearing simple enough, [and that] brings out the woman instead of the dress.” He then elucidates: “when you meet someone, you should be looking at them, not the dress . . . [which] should enhance the woman and not overpower her. I know people who can actually pull off crazy looks and it doesn’t overpower them because they have the personality to carry things like that. But most of the women here don’t.”21

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What also transpired from my conversations with him, which he reiterates in the Whiteboard Journal interview, is his sense of context for the clothing women wear, context for him being a concept that embraces a sense of concern for the environment (eco-friendliness) but also awareness of it in all its nuances. As he says, “context means where you’re going. I think a lot of designers here create gala gowns. I mean where are you going to go with that in Jakarta? There is no occasion to wear that. The lifestyle here is malls, resorts and going to lunch . . . I think the clothes must be appropriate for that and the weather is hot so you shouldn’t make things with polyester. And also, this is a country with a huge Muslim population so you have to be considerate about that, too.”22 Soesastro is passionate about his work and very articulate. Some of his interviews are available on video through YouTube and also on Vimeo, the latter clearly for an international audience as Vimeo is banned in Indonesia.23 Auguste Soesastro recognizes the power of film as a medium, and in particular of fashion films. It comes as no surprise therefore that he should have been involved in a fashion film collaboration with Yogyakarta-based visual artist Alan Mahirma Lars, which won the Visionaire Fashion Film Competition in 2016, Visionaire being a curated fashion film portal run by Studio One. The film, entitled Sumurup, a Javanese word denoting the transition from day to night, is a poetic statement on the ecological crisis of contemporary Indonesia, showing the anxious wait for the Goddess Dewi Sri, the mythical goddess of fertility, whose arrival represents hope and prosperity. The model-performers move to a gamelan score and are dressed in white, sleeveless clothes with a perfect cut, with veiled hats in the same white shade, inspired by the large cone-shaped straw hats of Javanese farmers; images of the sea waves and the beach are juxtaposed with decay, smoke, fire, and a fierce dragon, harbinger of destruction, while one of the girls floats lifelessly in the sea. The film perfectly sums up Soesastro’s engagement with the ills of contemporary society, through making clothing that is respectful of the eco-balance of the planet. It also does justice to the strong visual quality of Lars’ photography, succeeding in placing fashion in a social context and providing, through fashion, a powerful social commentary. It is a compelling project that evokes the intensity and drama of the photography of Steven Meisel, whose 2010 shoot with model Kristen McMenamy for Vogue Italia, at the time led by Franca Sozzani, inspired by the ecological disaster of the Gulf of Mexico, was applauded but not without controversy.24

Tri Handoko Joewono: Minimalism and emotional design Hailing from Blitar, East Java, Tri Handoko first trained as a traditional dancer, but inspired by a classmate who was dabbling in fashion illustration, he became

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interested and then decided to become a designer, studying first at the Susan Budihardjo School, then in Australia. While still completing his training, he won the Runner-Up trophy for Casual Wear category in the Fashion Design competition held by Sarinah magazine in 1989. After graduation he returned to Indonesia in 1992 and interned for several designers. In 1997 he launched his first label, Frantho by Tri Handoko, which then became Tri Handoko. He then launched Austere and finally 3 by Tri Handoko. He also designs menswear. After designing a wedding dress for his long-time collaborator and occasional muse Ajeng Svastiari, whose wedding took place in 2017, in November 2018 Tri Handoko launched his first bridal wear line, through an installation at the annual IPMI Trend Show. Tri Handoko has held the position of IPMI Chair. Recipient of several awards, his style is characterized by minimalism, comfort, and attention to detail, with clean lines, somewhat androgynous, with a contained sexiness. He loves black and white but does not eschew color. He tends not to use traditional textiles and techniques but when he does, he transforms them. Thus, for example, he has been known to paint contemporary batik using only a black dye on a white background—I am the proud owner of one such creation, a unique piece. A deeply spiritual man, he says of himself, “I never try to predict what lies ahead. So, if it turns out that I have this gift granted by God as somebody that people see as a trendsetter, then I can only thank Him. Because it’s not me.”25 And about what inspires him, he sums it up as, “it could be anything: films, music, my own emotions, biographies . . . I’m not the type to fantasize. I need to be sure that there will be people who want to wear what I make. Whatever it is that inspires me will be refined so that it can stay relevant.”26 There are some designers whom he deeply admires and who have had an impact on him, especially Marras and Alexander McQueen. The collection Tri Handoko presented at Fashion Nation 2018 in Senayan City, a show which I attended, struck me as a deeply felt homage to Alexander McQueen’s Highland Rape collection of 1995. Tri Handoko’s checked shirts and skirts echoed McQueen’s tartans, but there was also a subtle reference to the Balinese checkered poleng cloth. The collection had a very distinct identity. Entitled A State with No Motion, there was great energy, calm and sedate on the surface but revealing a raw, emotional intensity that captured the imagination of the audience, enhanced by the accessories by Rinaldy A. Yunardi. Tri Handoko’s designs are subversive but the rebelliousness is tempered by his great skill in tailoring, which appeals even to those who find it hard to appreciate the subversive streak of his clothes. I have already talked at length about the IPMI Trend Show 2016,27 and will not elaborate further. But I would like to mention briefly the fashion film Intersection, which presented the Austere 2017/18 collection, available to view through Visionaire. It is a fashion film that juxtaposes the “hyperactivity” of the Shibuya crossing in Tokyo, one of the most crowded spots anywhere in the world,

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swarming with people, with the despondency of a lone individual among the seemingly infinite crowd. It is rather somber and quintessentially “Tri Handoko.” The person in his/her entirety is one of the concerns of Tri Handoko as a designer, and an exploration of emotion is integral to his work. He treats his design work as performance art and imbues the presentation of his collections with a melancholy streak, borne out by the clothes.

Musa Widyatmojo: Business acumen and skillful cut Musa Widyatmojo, indefatigable supporter of ID.FW and of APPMI, of which he has been Chair, trained as a designer in Philadelphia at Drexel University, after completing a degree in Business Administration. During his studies at Drexel, he paid a lot of attention to the sociology of fashion, learning to view clothes from a theoretical angle. He returned to Indonesia and started his own brand in 1991, M by Musa. At present he owns three labels: M by Musa, Musa Widyatmojo, and Musa Co, which specializes in corporate apparel. He designs for women and men. A recipient of several international and national awards,28 Musa Widyatmojo’s aspiration is for an Indonesian fashion that is competitive on the international market but does not abandon its textile heritage, which he views as its distinctive feature. As I interviewed him in April 2018, he was getting ready to participate in the eighteenth Borobudur Masterpiece series, which combines fashion and performing arts, linking up with the tourist industry, and which includes a festival of batik with the participation of the major batik houses and designers of the country, in an effort to encourage millennial designers to use batik imaginatively. Musa is very keen to promote younger designers and coach them, believing that expert mentoring is crucial to the growth of the fashion industry, thus he would like to see more workshops and more exchange opportunities. This is why he recently teamed up with Amy Wirabudi to create The Next Stop, a fashion consultancy through which they intend to take the Indonesian fashion industry forward. A close collaborator of Poppy Dharsono, he was directly involved in the organization of ID.FW18, particularly the model competition—more of which later—and the designer competition. He also presented his own collection inspired by the Borodudur theme, as set for ID.FW18. At the press conference held on the day of the show, he said he was looking at Borobudur with contemporary eyes. Thus, there was a suggestion of batik but not a conventional batik look. Buddhist monks and lotus flowers in Borobudur were his inspiration, adding that the Buddhist monks wear an orange-like color. The cloth of their robes is basically white but when soaked in turmeric it turns into a yellowy

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orange, and this was reprised in the collection. Musa concluded with a heartfelt message to “the children of the nation,” saying that if they abandoned their traditional roots, they would be unable to mark themselves out on the global fashion scene and would risk being crushed by the fashion made in China and other Asian countries. In subsequent conversations—as mentioned, Musa was also my discussant when I gave my talk about my research on contemporary Indonesian fashion at ID.FW18—he made it clear that despite the rise of busana muslim and its growing importance within the landscape of Indonesian fashion, there was still ample room for “conventional fashion” and batik was key to this. As for the sustainability issue, Musa thought that although it is indeed very important, in Indonesia it is still a buzz word and no one really knows how to implement it fully. There are several challenges and obstacles that individual designers are confronted with, especially the sourcing of fibers, which have to be largely imported as there is no real local production, though there have been moves in that direction. With Armani, Chanel, and van Noten among the Western designers he most admires, and Iwan Tirta, Biyan, and Adrian Gan from Indonesia, Musa seems to have a clear aesthetic founded on his ability to blend and mingle in an unconventional way, which sums up his fashion philosophy. He has indicated his guiding principles as being a clear business focus, teamwork, and research. In terms of fashion presentation, Musa Widyatmojo has put on very engaging shows, combining them with contemporary performance rather than traditional dancing, such as the one presented in 2009 at Jakarta Convention Center, inspired by the novel Mimpi Dara (Dream of Dara) authored by Yogi Soegyono, a long-time collaborator of Musa’s. The show was directed by Boi G. Sakti, son of the celebrated Minang choreographer Gusmiati Suid, and Boi choreographed the performance Journey, using moves from the pencak silat of Minang culture.29 There was a sub-theme of purity, exemplified by the predominance of the color white, with black and red, and the use of Sumatran songket. Musa also designed the dancers’ attires, all white, and there was a seamless interaction between the dancers and the models. Designing for performers is high on Musa’s agenda, and he feels that the collaboration between designers and performers needs to be further explored within the Indonesian context, where there is a tendency to rely on traditional costumes for traditional performance, or, in the case of contemporary dance performance, costumes may be just put together without consulting a designer. Designing for dance performance is a lot more than designing costumes, it is a synergy of fashion and dance as indeed Coco Chanel demonstrated through her designs for Diaghilev’s Le train bleu (1924), marking a significant change in the way costuming for dance was conceived.30 It is something that Musa Widyatmojo and a few other designers, including Auguste Soesastro, seem to have taken on board.

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One of the most important endeavors of Musa Widyatmojo is the making of uniforms or corporate apparel for a large number of companies, especially those in the service industry. In Indonesia, uniforms are much more widespread than in the Western world, where they may be limited to certain professions only, e.g. airline personnel, with people adhering instead to a dress code or quasi-uniforms in offices, even though casual corporate apparel on the shop floor is a common practice, e.g. branded t-shirts.31 There are challenges to do with sizing—according to Musa, the S size used in Europe and America and to an extent Australia, is not right for Indonesian women, who tend to have a shorter waist and larger hips than their Caucasian counterpart; also body shapes tend to change over the decades, and Musa is of the view that the use of clothing that is not fitted means that it is easier for the waistline to thicken. Fit models,32 however, are rarely used in Indonesia, instead the measuring is all done on mannequins of the desired size and body shape. Musa maintains that the uniform business must be local to guarantee immediate availability33 and avows that designing uniforms is also conceptually challenging as it has to follow ergonomic principles. His uniforms are becoming more colorful, Musa says that he uses his trips overseas as a way to do research, checking out what bank employees are wearing, for example, and noting any change in color and style, for reference. According to data provided by the Ministry of Industry, the market for uniforms in Indonesia is worth an estimated $780 million per year, reflecting the economic growth of the country.34 Overall, the uniform business in Indonesia is growing, with more and more companies adopting uniforms to promote brand values and to create an atmosphere of equality among employees. According to Musa, not many designers seem to find the uniform business attractive, thus overlooking a profitable opportunity. Links with textile companies are crucial for this to be a successful venture. For example, the Musa Co brand has a good relationship with Trisula Textiles in Bandung, West Java. This company manufactures polyester fabrics in combination with rayon and cotton and is known under the brand names Bellini and Caterina, and through subsidiaries such as Mido, it makes uniforms that are then delivered to its many customers. Designers of corporate apparel work in conjunction with these manufacturers.35

Susanna Perini and Martha Ellen Nuttall: Foreign designers in Indonesia The next two designers are both non-Indonesian women who have been working in Indonesia, coming respectively from Italy and the United Kingdom but reaching

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Indonesia at a very different time. Their paths do not cross, the women are different by upbringing, and their aesthetic visions do not dovetail. But their experience is remarkable because both have chosen to work in Indonesia using Indonesian textile techniques, albeit with different outcomes. Thus, they are relevant to a discussion of Indonesian contemporary fashion on the global stage. Susanna Perini is from Rome. Her family was involved in fashion, her mother had a small atelier, running her own label, so she grew up with fashion in her blood; as she says, she just took her knowledge and experience and adapted it to a new context. At university she studied anthropology, then she took up photography and arrived in Bali in 1987 to do a fashion shoot for the magazine Io Donna. Bali made such an impression on her that she ended up returning to the island to stay, marrying in due course American designer Paul Ropp who, like Milo, had been in Bali since the 1970s, arriving at the height of the hippy era. They parted ways after a few years and in 1994 Susanna Perini opened Biasa (lit. “ordinary” in Bahasa Indonesia but also a reference to the Buddhist concept of “middle way”) in Seminyak, a boutique atelier where she sold garments that were made in Bali and appealed to a cosmopolitan clientele. It was resort wear in cotton and silk, with Balinese embroidery, the textile materials sourced in India and everywhere else Perini found them during her frequent travels, but the cut and production were done in Bali. Gradually, Biasa evolved, retaining the functionality of its resort wear origin (moda mare as Perini calls it) but with stylistic nuances that would turn it into the optimal hot weather urban wear, cool and chic, with a touch of “street,” for both women and men. Perini’s fashion statement is aptly conveyed by the name Biasa, denoting how everyday life can be elegantly and imaginatively “worn” with effortlessness. Currently, Perini owns a factory near Denpasar that employs about six hundred people.36 The brand has five outlets, in Indonesia and overseas, numbering among them a large store in Jakarta Kemang and one in Mexico. Susanna Perini became an Indonesian national in 2015 and in 2017 she was made “Cavaliere dell’Ordine del Merito della Repubblica” (Knight of the Order of Merit of the Republic) by the Italian government, in recognition of her services to fashion. Susanna Perini started with a business model followed by many foreigners who had settled in Bali during the New Order period and which Vickers describes as small-scale, boutique production with international connections, through “personal ties” by “expatriate-linked producers [who] demonstrate long-term commitment to local production and to the industry, and . . . eschew cheaper labour alternatives to stay in Bali because Bali’s handicraft expertise provides a special production niche.”37 But what made her unique and ensured success was her vision, supported by creative talent, strong teamwork, the belief that the “local should go global” without sacrificing core values, and that fashion and art could engage in a fruitful

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dialog. In 2003, Susanna Perini opened a contemporary art gallery, Biasa Art Space, right next to the boutique, with a separate entry but also internally accessible via the shop, on the first floor. Inside there is a landscaped garden, where visitors can sit, which is an oasis of peace that seems to be miles away from the hustle and bustle of Seminyak. Apart from regular exhibitions of Indonesian and international artists, the gallery also displays the many art objects Perini has collected when traveling. In her role as curator she has forged many international links and some of the Indonesian artists who have exhibited at her gallery have also been invited, as a result, by foreign galleries. In her pursuit of a dialog between art and fashion, in 2017 Perini collaborated with Belgian artist Jyoti Perenco on the installation “Art to Wear,” with painted silk fabrics and images of women walking wearing kaftans to show “the originality of fabric that builds a personal connection with humans,”38 exhibited as part of “Art x Fashion” at Plaza Indonesia in December 2017. The store cum gallery is actually a “concept store,”39 the first in Bali, a store that follows a unified vision with products pertaining to lifestyle and carefully curated to appeal to customers at many levels, from the sensorial to the intellectual and philosophical. Perini also has a range of products that are sold alongside clothes, be they accessories or beautiful objects for the home environment made by other designers, elegantly displayed with a range of art works hanging from the walls. Asked about her design aesthetic, Perini says, “unique, innovative, simple, deconstructed, sophisticated—I design for those who are comfortable with who they are . . . I like to push the boundaries for both men and women, whether it’s cut, color, embellishment or fit. Therefore, pieces often feature details that are only visible when you take the time to have a closer look. On top of it all, my philosophy of ‘beauty in simplicity’ is projected in both lines [men and womenswear].”40 Apart from local handiwork techniques, Biasa also relies on experts outside Bali and, in particular, in Milan, to achieve world-class styling. Biasa does not participate in the hectic fashion weeks held in Jakarta, or anywhere else. However, it supported ID.FW12 through a stall that was turned into an installation using the work of visual artist Handy Hermansyah, combining art and fashion and, on that occasion, addressing the issue of “traffic jam” so relevant to Jakarta, making a strong statement about human beings and their environment and about “organic” and “inorganic.”41 The sharing of values that is at the core of Biasa as a brand, the way it views the fashion/art dialog as enriching, and the effort to understand the relationship between the clothed body and the environment, has set the brand apart from the very start. Perini also uses unconventional models for the Biasa look books, often opting for non-professionals, which again fits in well with her vision and her desire to give back to the community. She says of herself: “I did not want to be

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a designer . . . I wanted to be a movie director because I like to tell stories. That’s why I like to work with artists because it is the way I can tell a story.”42 The other foreign designer I have chosen to discuss is British-born Martha Ellen Nuttall, a Central Saint Martins graduate. She was working in London in advertising when she went to Jakarta on a visit and fell in love with tenun ikat, intuiting that Indonesian handwoven textiles had great potential in terms of creating a fashion that could also be worn by women outside Indonesia, even in colder climes. She enrolled at ESMOD Jakarta to learn about patterning and everything else a designer needs to know to make high-quality clothes, and made contact with a family of weavers in Bali who would provide the raw material for her designs, beautiful handwoven ikat whose versatility, so she believed, had not been fully put to good use. After ESMOD she interned with Jeffrey Tan and was mentored by Ali Charisma, and eventually founded her own label, Martha Ellen. Martha Ellen took charge of all aspects of design, modernizing motifs but always working together with the Balinese weavers. For her it was all about creating a good ready-to-wear line (with some bespoke as well) for the contemporary urban woman, and doing this by supporting and enabling local communities and their crafts, giving them access to an international market. She cites Balinese architecture and the Balinese landscape as providing an inspiration for her designs, reinterpreted through a stripped-back aesthetic and an English sensibility. Martha Ellen is committed to designing for women of all shapes and sizes and uses British sizes from 6 to 18 to target an international market. She never indicated having problems with these sizes, no matter the shape and height of her customers. She launched the brand at Brightspot Market in 2011, and the following year her clothes were sold through The Goods Dept, with outlets in major shopping malls. In 2013 she showed a collection simply named, A new line in ikat, at ID.FW, which was instantly well received, coinciding with the opening of the Martha Ellen boutique atelier in Kemang. Hannah Al Rashid, actor and model of French-Indonesian parentage, born and brought up in London though now living and working in Indonesia, has modeled Martha Ellen’s clothes since 2015, and has worn a couple of her pieces at film premieres, which brought further attention to the brand. For Martha Ellen, Hannah represents the ideal wearer: Hannah Al Rashid has been my muse from the beginning of the design process through to the final realization and capture of #SS15. Having designed some outfits that she’d requested be work appropriate but which would be fun off duty, I realised her ideal of what design should do for women was exactly what I wanted to focus on. At the risk of sounding clichéd, my goal is to make clothes for ‘real women’ who work, who are perhaps accomplished actresses, mothers, women who travel, are independent, have a story, who appreciate quality and cherish something unique.43

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Following a trip to Melbourne in 2017, where she had a show and a pop-up store as part of the Indonesian Heritage Exhibition, Martha Ellen was one of the designers invited by Musa Widyatmojo to be represented at Lippo Mall, Kemang, in the Legacy–The New Playground store, a ready-to-wear outlet for independent labels. Martha Ellen sold at Lippo Mall until she left Indonesia in November 2017. I subsequently interviewed Martha Ellen in London in May 2018. Asked on the reason why she packed her bags after almost ten years in Indonesia, she told me that she had always had, at the back of her mind, the idea of returning to the UK, where her roots are. She thought that her brand could not grow further in Indonesia, where lack of infrastructure in the fashion industry hinders independent and younger designers. She also fell between two stools, not being herself Indonesian but also not being a foreign brand. She simply felt that it was time to leave. Now that she is back in the UK, she is in the process of relaunching her brand, considering whether a concept store might be her next move.44

“Made in Indonesia” on the global stage: The fault lines of fashion I end this chapter about designers and “Made in Indonesia” by considering the case of Anniesa Hasibuan, through which the crevasses of the global fashion system are exposed. I discuss her case here even though she was not a designer, she only posed as one. I am aware that genuine designers might be displeased by my decision to include her, believing a veil should be drawn over the matter. But Anniesa Hasibuan’s case throws light on issues that are rarely addressed. She was able to fool the entire fashion world, winning accolades and prizes and becoming for two consecutive years the darling of NYFW. How could that happen? Anniesa Hasibuan and her husband Andika Surachman are of a lower middleclass background, both from Jakarta. They used to run a street stall, selling burgers. In 2009 they set up a company, First Travel, which organized umrah and hajj pilgrimages to Mecca for devout Muslims. Individuals had to make an advance payment of US $1,000 to secure their booking, but the pilgrimages never happened. Instead, Anniesa Hasibuan and her husband used the money to fund a very lavish lifestyle. They both traveled frequently to the UAE, where there was some money laundering, though it is unclear from reports whether it was just from First Travel or other sources too. The agency operated from 2009 to 2017, which is when the two of them were arrested and prosecuted. In hindsight, it seems rather odd that it should have taken that long to catch them. Other people based in the island of Sulawesi were involved in the First Travel scam. They have all been jailed.

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The details of the fraud are well known and have been discussed at length in the domestic and international press, though no real analysis of the case has been provided. What is of interest here and falls within the remit of this book is how Anniesa could rise as an international fashion designer, with no training whatsoever apart from the ability to sew a little, as many Indonesian women are taught to do. With hardly any formal education—she always said she was selftaught—she was able to wow the international fashion media and establish a fashion brand, from scratch, with a sophisticated international marketing strategy, at least on paper. It seems unlikely that she could do it all by herself, and it begs the question whether she was merely a front, with other people behind her, not only in Indonesia, individuals who could provide her with the necessary knowledge and expertise and who have rapidly and effectively distanced themselves from Hasibuan and her husband to avoid getting caught up in further and more rigorous investigations. In 2014 Anniesa Hasibuan, who was not a hijaber until then, reinvented herself as a busana muslim designer, opening a luxurious store in Jakarta Kemang in 2015 and posting images of her extravagant lifestyle on social media, attracting thousands of followers, and becoming a fashion icon for conservative Muslim women around the world. Her collections, on a closer look, were all pilfered from other designers and indeed there was an exchange of harsh words between her and well-known busana muslim designer Dian Pelangi who publicly accused her of stealing one of her look books.45 Anniesa used the finest of silks for her creations, which required little fitting and availed of a team of seamstresses to work “under her direction.” Apparently, dressmaking had been a hobby of hers but once First Travel got off the ground she saw dressmaking as an opportunity to make substantial money and gain fame, by turning into a designer. Some people in the Indonesian fashion world were not fully convinced by her act, but Anniesa was able to make her way, via the UAE, to London and New York, where she was introduced as a budding designer from Indonesia. Recognition in Jakarta followed and she was acclaimed as a new talent at JFW16 and JFW17. There are several fashion consultancies, internationally, some of which with a short life span, that act as designer scouts, with the purpose of introducing designers from developing countries to the “fashion capitals of the world”—usually the Western fashion capitals. It is a service for which the designers are charged; those who participate are either self-financed or sponsored. These consultancies/ agencies regularly pick designers and present their work, usually but not exclusively, during a major fashion week, in parallel fashion shows at some known venue, with a chance for media and, ideally, buyers, to meet the designer. One of such shows is the Kaftan Show Festival aka Zyriab Fashion Show, established by the Women’s Growth and Success Foundation (WGSF) directed by Zainab Al-Farham Al-Imam, from the UAE, and founded in London in 2010. Despite its name, the festival presents a mix of different styles, not all necessarily

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“modest wear”, by designers from a number of Muslim countries, especially North Africa and the Middle East. In May 2015 Anniesa Hasibuan was one of the designers who showcased her pieces at the festival, on that occasion held at Westfield Shopping Centre.46 On the strength of the London show and the WGSF recommendation, Anniesa was able, through Tety Nurhayati and her Indonesia Fashion Gallery (IFG), to present her collection in New York in 2016, and thanks to excellent PR she was hailed worldwide as the first designer to put models in hijabs on the New York runway.47 According to Teti Nurhayati, Anniesa Hasibuan’s clothes were “edgy and luxurious,” and she was able to demonstrate “the production capability to go global,” adding that Hasibuan’s failure was only that of embezzling money, her fashion was flawless.48 It remains to be seen on what basis Teti Nurhayati could be so confident in the ability of Anniesa Hasibuan to deliver. Journalist Rahman Indra has a different story to tell. Appearing at NYFW (or LFW or even MFW) is very time-consuming for most designers, in terms of preparing a worthy collection, and it is also very expensive. Indra, from his research, quotes the figure of a minimum of US $200,000 for a slot at NYFW, with brands such as Burberry or Louis Vuitton paying as much as US $1,000,000.49 Anniesa Hasibuan seemed able to conjure up different collections within only a few weeks from each other, and it seems no questions were asked about her methods. Be that as it may, Anniesa Hasibuan was able to secure a second show at NYFW in February 2017, in which she used non-professional models of immigrant origin, apparently as a gesture of protest against the Trump administration, capturing the mood of the moment and ostensibly making a political statement. It turned her into a star.50 Anniesa Hasibuan seemed to know exactly what to say to journalists and her success abroad made it easier for her to silence critics at home. She began to be invited to all major busana muslim fashion events, until the moment when the truth about First Travel was revealed. Her fall was as rapid as her rise.51 Anniesa Hasibuan cannot be dismissed simply as a fraudster, which she undeniably was. The point is that her ability to make headway so quickly in fashion was enabled by a system that is perversely warped and is willing to accommodate corruption rather easily. It would appear that the statement of a person’s work can, in some quarters, be regarded important only in terms of whether it valorizes a community, with insufficient scrutiny of the individual’s methods, credentials, and integrity as an anonymous reader commented on the blog post I wrote about Anniesa. Anniesa Hasibuan’s lack of skills as a designer could easily be masked by her use of exquisite materials, and no one seemed to notice because busana muslim is still in the process of being defined and there are no real terms of comparison for it. She dazzled through making her busana muslim exotic and alluring, with a vision of Indonesian Islamic dress that indulged an archetypal representation of the Orient, evoked by the sheer sensuousness of the fabrics and appealing to a

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latent desire to exoticize the Other. It does not come as a surprise that she was so successful in New York. She paid lavish sums to get to that stage but once she was there, she had everyone eating out of her hands.52 Her cultural difference was measured through exoticism and its “contemporary status as a global mode of mass market consumption . . . a form of commodity fetishism.”53 Anniesa Hasibuan’s triumphant walk on the runway of NYFW makes us painfully aware of what Geczy describes as the contemporary version of Orientalism, transorientalism, encompassing the “two-sidedness of the cultural encounter.”54 Her collection(s) and rapturous reception revealed “the moment of exposing the imaginary remainder of the undisclosed,”55 conjuring up unfathomable old memories of metonymic harems belonging to a lingering dreamed-up Orient, through hijab-wearing immigrant women, clad in luxurious drapes.

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Fig. 1 At Ghea Fashion Studio, Menteng atelier, 2015.

Fig. 2 Janna Soekasah Joesoef with children Janina and Javana for Ghea Kids, Sumba Collection 2018. Photo courtesy Ghea Fashion Studio.

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Fig. 3 Ghea Panggabean, Societa’ Umanitaria Fashion Show, Milan, Gringsing Bali Collection 2013. Model: Advina. Photo courtesy Ghea Fashion Studio.

Fig. 4 Thirtieth anniversary of Ghea Panggabean. Jumputan Pelangi Bali Collection 2010. Model: Wiwied Muljana. Photo courtesy Ghea Fashion Studio.

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Fig. 5 Ghea Panggabean’s eponymous antique pelangi bought in Bali at the start of her career.

Fig. 6 Le Cirque de Sebastian collection, Sebastian Gunawan. Photo by Peter Tjahjadi, courtesy Sebastian Gunawan, 2018.

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Fig. 7 A hijaber at ID.FW15. Photo by Toni Garbasso, courtesy Toni Garbasso, 2015.

Fig. 8 A group of hijaber fashionistas at ID.FW15. Photo by Toni Garbasso, courtesy Toni Garbasso.

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Fig. 9 At the October 2015 Biyan’s Trunk Show, Jakarta.

Fig. 10 A fitting at Tri Handoko’s atelier before the IPMI Trend Show 2016, November 2015, Jakarta.

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Fig. 11 Models for Obin pretending to take a selfie at JFW16, Jakarta 2015.

Fig. 12 An original late 1970s Iwan Tirta couture piece, Private Collection, Jakarta, 2018.

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Fig. 13 One of Prajudi’s 1970s creations. Private Collection, Jakarta, 2018.

Fig. 14 An original Iwan Tirta batik cloth, Jakarta. Private Collection, 2018.

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Fig. 15 Clothes exhibition, Sejauh Mata, Plaza Indonesia, Jakarta, 2015.

Fig. 16 Models taking selfies (for real) at the end of Anne Avantie’s show, ID.FW18, March 2018, Jakarta.

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Fig. 17 A gown by Sebastian Gunawan. Photo by Peter Tjahjadi, courtesy Sebastian Gunawan, 2018.

Fig. 18 Another gown by Sebastian Gunawan. Photo by Peter Tjahjadi, courtesy Sebastian Gunawan, 2018.

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Fig. 19 Details of the intricate decoration in the gown in photo 18. Photo courtesy Sebastian Gunawan, 2018.

Fig. 20 One of Tri Handoko’s creations. Models: Ajeng Svastiari and Kusuma Wardhany. Photographer: Babam Bramaditia. Accessories: Rinaldy A. Yunardi. Photo courtesy of Tri Handoko.

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Fig. 21 A piece from the 2015 Martha Ellen collection modeled by Hannah Al Rashid. Photo by Ryerson Anselmo, courtesy of Martha Ellen.

Fig. 22 Timeless Beauty poster. Courtesy Alien Production SAS.

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Fig. 23 Supermodel Sara Stockbridge in the Grey Model Agency launch campaign, “Am I Grey?” Photo: Paul Spencer, courtesy Grey Model Agency.

Fig. 24 Supermodel Sara Stockbridge in the Grey Model Agency launch campaign, “Am I Grey?” Photo: Paul Spencer, courtesy Grey Model Agency.

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Fig. 25 Bridal collection, Tri Handoko, IPMI Trend Show 2019, installation.

Fig. 26 Mel Ahyar, IPMI Trend Show 2019, installation.

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Fig. 27 A cup from Sebastian Gunawan’s Arcadia tableware collection, November 2018. Like other designers, Sebastian Gunawan has also branched out into lifestyle with tableware.

Fig. 28 A model at the Biyan Studio 133 show for JD.id, November 6, 2018.

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Fig. 29 Another model at the Biyan Studio 133 show for JD.id, November 6, 2018.

Fig. 30 Tri Handoko’s show, Fashion Nation 2018, Senayan City, April 2018.

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Fig. 31 Indigo Exhibition, Ghea for IPMI, Senayan City, April 2018.

Fig. 32 Poppy Dharsono, models and well-wishers at the close of her show at ID.FW18.

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Fig. 33 Fashion Link billboard at Senayan City, March 2018.

Fig. 34 A traditional dancer in an elaborate costume wearing platform shoes greets visitors at ID.FW18.

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Fig. 35 Security at the entrance of ID.FW18, Jakarta, March 2018.

Fig. 36 The erstwhile Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem, April 2018.

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Fig. 37 A street performer in Old Batavia, Jakarta, November 2015.

Fig. 38 Old Batavia, Jakarta Renovation Project, November 2015.

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Fig. 39 Inside the famous Café Batavia, favorite location of many fashion photo shoots, with a series of photo-portraits of all its celebrity customers. Jakarta, November 2015.

Fig. 40 High-rise buildings in contemporary Jakarta, March 2018.

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PART THREE

MEDIATING FASHION

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4 FASHION IN PRINT AND ONLINE: DIGITALIZING BEAUTY AND STYLE Fashion and media in Indonesia, as elsewhere, are intertwined, almost interdependent. Fashion is reconfigured and diffused through print magazines, the internet, TV, cinema, and social media, with crossovers, consolidating a fashion culture. In this chapter I will focus specifically on magazines, print and online, blogs, and social media, highlighting the role of the alluring fashion and lifestyle imagery they carry in propagating and consolidating ideas of beauty and style. As for the latter, I propose to discuss them in greater depth in Chapter six; for now, it will suffice to note how wholly enmeshed in the fashion discourse such concepts are and how, predictably, they become the subject matter and raison d’etre of publications addressed to women. Until the 1970s and well into the 1980s, fashion journalism hardly existed in Indonesia, and women’s magazines were a non-entity. It was thanks to people such as the late Cynthia Sujanto Alm, with a background in fine arts, that the newer profession of fashion redaktur was consolidated, and a Fashion Editors Association1 was formed. Fashion journalism received a boost at national level, reconfiguring the scope and appearance of women’s magazines through the production of fashion editorials with professional models, photographed by professional photographers and professionally styled. Today, of the fashion and lifestyle women’s magazines circulating in Indonesia, some are local endeavors, as in the case of those published by the already mentioned Femina Group, a publishing dynasty established in 1970 by the Alisjahbana family. Others are franchises of international titles, such as Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Grazia, Tatler, Prestige, L’Officiel, and many more, acquired by several powerful media groups, many of which are Indonesian ethnic Chinese-owned. Grazia in particular, a franchise of Italian Grazia, published in Milan since 1938,2 is also part of the Femina Group’s portfolio, having been licensed to them. Thus, it becomes clear that the matter of local and franchise magazines is not a simple opposition of “indigenous” versus “foreign,” there is a permeability of 85

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content as well as a largely Indonesian ownership. The franchise magazines have as much Indonesian-related fashion and beauty features as needed to make them relevant to their Indonesian readership, and are of course in Bahasa, peppered with English, while loosely adhering to the prescribed format of the original periodical. Through them a cosmopolitan identity is proffered for consumption. But some of the local top-end magazines propagate a similar message of consumeristic cosmopolitanism, in which Dolce & Gabbana, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton are placed alongside precious hand-painted batik cloths and photographed in dream locations. Print is often said to be under the threat of demise because of the rapid development of digital platforms, despite periodic reassurances that it will never die, as it fulfills the needs of generations of consumers who, in their domestic sphere, are less inclined to go completely digital.3 Moreover, there are still vast areas in Indonesia that have not achieved full digital connectivity, whereby discontinuing print would seem counterintuitive. However, as Nugroho et  al. maintain, in Indonesia print in its current form is on “life support,” and it is being kept alive through that very process of digitalization and media convergence, which in Indonesia has been eagerly adopted as a business strategy, and that will ultimately render print obsolete.4 It is not only an issue of technological expansion, there are strong economic and political factors at play. The Indonesian press is owned by national media conglomerates into which some foreign capital is also injected. Conglomeration is increasingly being espoused as a befitting economic response to technological media convergence, resulting in major holdings inclusive of all forms of media, from newspapers to movie studios, in fierce competition with one another at all levels.5 The rapacious merge and acquisition (M&A) implementation in the media sector can be traced back to the days of Suharto, when it was keenly practiced through nepotistic connections, and it has been supported in its growth by a problematic lack of regulation through appropriate policies. As Jurriëns and Tapsell note, “under oligopolistic circumstances, digitalisation contributes to the rationalisation of resources across media sectors and stages of the production process, strengthening the homogenisation of media content.”6 Fashion and lifestyle magazines for a female readership are not exempt from this top-down uniformity. Femina, MRA, Kompas Gramedia, and Jawa Pos News are the four biggest Indonesian media groups, and they own a range of media channels, of which print is but one. The media industry is thwarted by cut-throat competition, at all levels, and sustained by revenue generated through aggressive and unregulated advertising. Indonesia has among the highest advertising expenditure in Southeast Asia because of its “robust consumption and domestic demand.”7 It is a situation that encourages a journalism for profit, which reveals much about the global business network of fashion media, of which Indonesia is participant, coherently unified in its pursuit of profitability, more than one would initially warrant.

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In this age of hyper-digital connection and 24/7 social networking, the massmediation of fashion occurs through social media channels accessed through mobile phones rather than print. Consequently, all print media in Indonesia, without exception, maintains a strong online presence and relies on it to boost its circulation, incorporating all newer platforms, social media included. The online version, following a standard blueprint, is not quite identical to the print version. It often only has teasers followed by an invitation to subscribe. It also tends to be more open and experimental with its photography, increasingly including videos of short fashion films.8 Predictably, it also has a plethora of pop-up adverts. Although it has been customary for media and online content to be handled by different editorial teams, the Femina Group prefers not to differentiate and gives its editors, now named Chief Community Officers, the responsibility of curating content on all platforms. This is a practice that the Chair of the Group regards as a strength in the face of competitors, though its fruitfulness remains to be ascertained.9 Some of the newer magazines publish exclusively online, occasionally bringing out a print edition, such as the relatively recently established Fimela, owned by the Kapan Lagi Group. Fimela prefers to cover bridal themes in the print edition. Other magazines are “niche fashion magazines,”10 with a regular online presence that may include an internet TV fashion channel with live streaming of international fashion shows and a once a year print version. Clara. Proudly Indonesia published by Livimbi Media is one of such niche fashion publications. Newspapers in Bahasa, increasingly with an online Bahasa/English bilingual version, as also newspapers in English such as The Jakarta Post and its rival, The Jakarta Globe—the latter only available online since 2015—cover fashion and beauty, primarily as news items. But in their magazine supplement, if they have one (for example J+ for The Jakarta Post, accessible online through premium subscription), they have more extensive fashion and beauty reportage. There is a growing trend of Islamic fashion and lifestyle magazines, such as Haniwa and NooR, addressed to women and turning them, as noted by Jones, into the subject of current discourses on piousness and consumption.11 I shall not specifically focus on them, for reasons I have already highlighted with regard to my take on busana muslim in the context of this book. There are also online alternative magazines such as Magdalene, in Bahasa and English, currently in the process of publishing a series of print anthologies of its best features, openly feminist and engaged in subverting stereotypical notions of beauty and femininity, attempting to promote diversity and pluralism, and encouraging readers to reflect on taboo issues relating to sexuality as well as issues concerning the position of women within Indonesian society. Magdalene is “lifestyle” with a difference.12 In the following sections, I shall discuss a few examples of fashion and lifestyle magazines, two titles published by the Femina Group, Dewi and Femina, and

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two franchise titles, Harper’s Bazaar and Prestige. I shall contrast them with Magdalene in terms of their gendered fashion discourse, even though Magdalene does not cover fashion, only beauty, and its beauty features depart from conventional ones, with no product recommendation and the total absence of beauty photography, only addressing ideas and understandings of beauty and how they affect the life of Indonesian women today. It is a thread that I will pick up in Chapter six but it is important to add it to a discussion of the mediation of fashion, beauty, and style, presenting a more diverse spectrum of voices. Magdalene, with its openness to readers, whom it invites to co-write the magazine, provides the lynch pin for a broader examination of how fashion, beauty, and style are articulated online, beyond any hegemonic fashion editorial discourse. Thus, the final section of this chapter gives a brief account of how these concerns have been reinterpreted through online interventions by Indonesian independent style bloggers, active participants in a global movement proposing an alternative, at times purposely whacky, fashion sense and providing a space for selfexperimentation and performance of the self. This is the style blogosphere, “[thriving] with informality, tangential connections and the passions, ideas and enigmatic co-presence of bloggers and their readers.”13 I look at how the bloggers’ activities have intersected with marketing strategies of international and local brands, by which several of them have eventually been co-opted. They have taken on the newer role of influencers, marking a transition from an assertion of independent taste and a challenge to established conformity to a sustained endorsement of products and reiteration of normativity, culminating in self-branding.

The Femina Group: Dewi and Femina Soon after arriving in Jakarta in 2015, I went to my local mall and picked up a glossy at the Periplus bookshop, Dewi, as on its cover it promised a preview of the forthcoming JFW, which I was about to attend. The cover girl of the September 2015 issue was a stunning middle-aged woman. I felt a surge of admiration. Indonesian fashion magazines seemed to have done it before their Euro-American counterparts, putting on the cover of a major fashion glossy an over-50 woman, whose face showed unmistakable signs of aging. But did it really mean that attitudes to aging were markedly different in Indonesia or, at least, in Indonesian fashion magazines, compared to those found in their Western counterparts?14 Upon reading the editorial feature I found out that Sarita Thaib, cover girl of the issue, had been a model in the 1980s—later, while consulting the Femina Group archives, I found pictures of her in a few Femina issues of the late 1970s— returning to modeling and branching out as an actress after a long gap away from the limelight, during which she also started her own clothing line. The cover

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and the editorial feature, accompanied by a “behind the scenes” video on the website of Dewi were meant to be a commentary, and also a warning of sort, on the growing spread of cosmetic surgery, largely unregulated, among Indonesian upper middle-class women. It was a way of saying to the core readership of the magazine that a few lines on a mature woman’s face are perfectly acceptable and can even be beautiful.15 The feature ostensibly signaled that “aging is OK,” but by having the caption, “Timeless Style,” (in English, followed by “Cantik & Gaya di usia 20, 30, 40”— Beauty & Style at the age of 20, 30, 40) at the bottom of the cover, it looked pretty similar to any glossy Western magazine’s “Ageless” issue,16 with exactly the same attitude to aging (i.e. it must be done gracefully) and plenty of advice on how to look one’s best and what to wear. However, the model in question was more relatable to Indonesian readers, as she was not Caucasian and was a known face.17 I shall be reprising the specifics of these body image issues in Chapter six. Here I wish to bring attention first to the existence of a coherently activated multi-platform strategy through the skilful integrated use of print and online material, demonstrating a technological know-how in no way inferior to that of any international media giant; then to the ability of conveying the dictates of a global fashion and beauty message regarding age, affirmed with little or no questioning, through apt Indonesian imagery. In her study of the teen magazine Gadis, Suzie Handajani makes the point that the models seen therein are not truly representative of the readers: “these models predominantly have sleek hair, light and smooth skin, slim built, and are dressed in stylish designer outfits, which many of the readers may not have.”18 There is definitely a correlation and a continuity between what the Indonesian teen magazines and the magazines aimed at older women portray, and the gender ideology they transmit. Thus, the “daring” September 2015 cover of Dewi remained as far removed from reality as the images of Gadis discussed by Handajani, still aspirational, but in a newer way, by providing a beauty role model for older women, with age being “kept in check.” Women’s magazines shape sartorial taste and provide meaning to clothing styles, turning them into an “example of the way in which ‘fashion’—as an abstract idea and aesthetic discourse—and ‘fashion’—as the actual clothing . . . connects with everyday dress.”19 This remains true of Indonesian fashion magazines, with an Indonesian twist, and in a varying degree, as will be seen by my closer examination of the Femina Group’s titles, Dewi and Femina.

Dewi: The Indonesian Vogue Dewi is a monthly that has been published by the Femina Group since the early 1990s, and is a veritable fashion bible, on the lines of Condé Nast’s Vogue, which

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is its undeclared blueprint. Currently led by Leila Safira, with Hidayat Jati as “Editor At Large,” Dewi is a Bahasa Indonesia magazine with more than a sprinkling of English in the titles of articles and in the fashion terminology it deploys. It commissions contributions from freelance writers and photographers as well as stylists, but it has a strong in-house varied team of highly skilled editors. Luxury brand advertising is an important source of revenue—the magazine began advertising Western luxury brands as soon as they opened their stores at Plaza Indonesia before any other publication did, having previously already secured Chanel ads for the Singapore market,20 where Dewi has a presence. The magazine, priced around IDR 80,000 ($5.37) is unusually large, 9½ × 13 inches, thus distinctive in appearance, with an average of 180 pages. The main focus is fashion (mode), treated under different headings: khas mode (fashion exclusive), liputan mode (fashion coverage), which may include news from Paris or New York, then mode (fashion), which may have articles about colors or accessories. This is followed by kecantikan (beauty), then a series of artikel (articles) about a plush lifestyle, covering home, travel, art, etc. This is followed by a khas (exclusive or special feature), which clearly varies. For example in Dewi March 2018 it was all about an “organic” lifestyle. The magazine’s readership comprises women from the age of 20 to 40 and above, urban and definitely affluent, or aspiring to be so. Dewi’s readers are posited as educated, and tend to be professional urban women, fluent English speakers who like showing off their linguistic skills, hence the heavy mix of Bahasa and English. They often travel abroad for work and for pleasure, with or without their husbands, this is left open-ended. They are envisaged as successful, no matter what they do. The articles address this kind of reader, corresponding to upper middle-class urban dwellers. Thus, food is discussed as gourmet eating, often featuring international restaurants—Dewi readers are not envisaged as spending much time in the kitchen, they would instruct their maids on what food should be put on the dining table. There is a section about Ruang (interior), that is designer homes, with examples of elegant and tasteful interior decoration, largely featuring Indonesian interior designers. There are articles about travel locations and these can be varied. A mix of Europe, Asia, the Americas, or some remote and “exotic” Indonesian destination. There are a few social pages about parties and the “beautiful people” that have attended them, but they are not as prominent as in other publications, as for example Indonesian Tatler, they tend to be relegated to the end pages of the magazine. Dewi is not about socialites, although they may be core readers. The beauty section has plenty of advice on cosmetics and skincare, and arty, closeup photography of beautiful young models, with immaculate complexions, skillfully made up by experts. Profile features vary. They may be about award-winning artists or prominent entrepreneurs, both male and female. The fashion spreads are exquisitely

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photographed and expertly styled, with tall and slim professional models, judiciously mixing Indonesian fashion models with Caucasian ones, especially those who are regularly seen in Jakarta—I will elaborate in Chapter six. Most of the fashion designers featured in such spreads are top Indonesian designers but there may be accessories from the foreign luxury brands with outlets in the more prestigious malls, such as Plaza Indonesia. Dewi has featured busana muslim designers but it does not specialize in busana muslim and tends to treat it as fashion rather than as an expression of community identity. Readers can interact with Dewi through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. YouTube videos are also available on the Dewi channel. An app for iPhones and one for Android users allows readers, internationally, to access any issue of Dewi for free, a move that is meant to boost advertising in the magazine in view of its very global reach. The magazine is overall consistent with its brief of being first and foremost a fashion publication, but also a magazine about an aspirational cosmopolitan lifestyle— cosmopolitan is a keyword. Dewi does not wear Indonesianness on its sleeve, and steers away from explicit statements about religious and/or political identity. It is all about being an affluent Indonesian woman in today’s hyper-connected world, a sagacious participant in a global conversation about beauty and style. The “book reviews” section usually discusses beautifully illustrated coffee table books on fashion and design, which fit in perfectly in the living room of a well-todo home. The ideal reader of Dewi wears very stylish boutique clothes, “Made in Indonesia” but not exclusively so, is ideally married to a successful man, though she is herself successful, she likes foreign luxury brands, being rather partial to Calvin Klein or Louis Vuitton, her accessories are always from high-end brands such as Gucci and she wears Jimmy Choo sandals. She has a mild interest in art, from the rather pragmatic point of view of what piece might look good in her gorgeous living room, and she may know which contemporary artist is showing in London or New York. She enjoys traveling as a well-to-do-tourist with a love for the exotic, be it within or outside Indonesia—the Sumba islands are “exotic” to her. She eats in all the “in” places and the interviews with chefs provide her with knowledge about what to order. She knows how to choose a good wine, regardless of whether she drinks alcohol herself. She may understand “slow fashion” in an abstract and decontextualized way as being the trend of the moment, and is guided towards buying from the “right” Indonesian designers (already known outside Indonesia, the foreign validation counts) who have apparently embraced the trend.21 She flicks through gorgeous picture books, admires and hopes to emulate very successful people with international connections (or if she knows them personally, which she might, she will be seething with envy and wonder why she has not been featured herself), knows how to disguise her facial imperfections and how to acquire a flawless complexion through expert makeup (and the discreet list of salons and clinics at the back of

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the magazine helps her to have some invisible “work” done), and overall does not ask too many questions about the world around her—not the point, really. The fashion professional, on the other hand, has no time for the lifestyle dream, which he/she knows is just a dream, and focuses instead on the images, getting a good insight into all current trends and getting an idea about how a feature should be put together to be visually impactful. Fashion students have plenty of close-ups on clothes made by excellent designers to find inspiration for their own work and to do their own research. To them Dewi is invaluable as a resource. If, as Brooke Duffy maintains, being able to sustain a unique editorial voice is what makes or breaks a publication,22 Dewi has brilliantly succeeded. The magazine skillfully translates “the world according to Vogue”—a phrase coined by Helen Kopnina23—into an Indonesian idiom, without being tied to the requirements of an expensive Condé Nast franchise. Dewi readers in all likelihood also buy Vogue, which is widely available in Indonesia in several of its international versions, or access it online, and can then draw a comparison. But, undoubtedly, Dewi speaks directly to them more than any franchise can. Whenever in Indonesia I asked people “in the know” why there was no Vogue Indonesia, and I was always told “Who needs Vogue? Dewi does the same job for less money.” Put that way, one cannot disagree.

Femina: The “real” Indonesian woman Femina is a sister publication of Dewi, but is older, in that it has been around since 1972, and is far less stylish. It is not a glossy, and not a fashion magazine,24 it is a full-blown lifestyle publication for women, which includes fashion coverage, and aims at reaching a more middle-class readership, rather than the top end. Although it bears the same name as an iconic Indian magazine published by The Times Group in Bombay/Mumbai since 1959, Indonesian Femina has no connection with its Indian namesake. Femina has alternated between being a weekly and a monthly. It is currently a monthly. Its readers are in the 20 to 50 age group, with mothers and daughters both reading the magazine and finding it right for their needs. This is because Femina has been striving to create a range of readers’ communities that it addresses through different platforms. The story of Femina and its first cover shot in her father’s garage, against a black velvet backdrop, has often been recounted by Svida Alisjahbana, as the magazine was started by her famous academic parents, Sofjan and Pia Alisjahbana. In her interview for BoF, Svida reminisces thus: “Femina was the first modern women’s magazine. My father was the business head and doubled up as the photographer. But the first editor was my aunt

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Mirta Kartohadiprodjo and another inspirational woman, Irma Hardisurya, was the first fashion editor. They featured topics raised by women for women— including fashion of course but much more . . . As a kid, I remember every year, my mother Pia would go away for a month to the fashion weeks in Europe and Hong Kong. Once there, Irma and Pia would blag their way into the runway shows to sketch and review the looks—this was long before catwalk shots could be bought from a photo agency . . . There were very few Asians around fashion week at all back then except the occasional Japanese . . . To say to a Paris fashion publicist in the 1970s that you were a journalist coming from Indonesia—or anywhere from South East Asia for that matter— well, let’s just say that these women needed to have a whole lot of charm and very strong characters.”25 Reading the issues of Femina through the decades is thrilling, as one gets a sense of the ingenuity of its editors, who often seemed to have the knack of “making do.” I went to the archives located at the Femina Group building in April 2018 to sift through the old Femina issues, assisted by a young companion who could not stop herself from giggling whenever we opened a magazine because the models were not “professionals” and some of their poses were dated, even a little ridiculous. It was an incredible experience, as a big chunk of history was unfolding that is somewhat neglected in many accounts of modern Indonesia. Issue 2, 1972, for example, carried an article explaining menstruation in a very scientific way, followed by exercises for how to walk with good posture, an overview of the French fashion for the forthcoming season, and a feature about the life of an Australian model, Diane Fitzpatrick, very much like a “girl next door,” with no photos, but an illustration by Irma Hardisurya. Diane’s measurements were given as 160 cm in height (on the short side for an Australian Caucasian girl, but just right for an Indonesian woman) and a perfect and enviable hour glass figure of 33-23-33 inch. Whether Diane was real or was a made-up character, utilized to talk about modeling at a time when it was not regarded as a desirable profession in Indonesia, remains unclear. There were also makeup lessons for which neither models nor photographers nor makeup artists were named, with photos in black and white and not particularly interesting from a visual point of view, using the products of Martha Tilaar, who went on to become a name in the Indonesian “natural” beauty industry. Throughout the 1970s, Femina grew and started using professional photographers and local Indonesian models, mostly upper middle-class girls doing it for fun and in their spare time, but with a better idea on how to pose than their predecessors—during my visit to the archives I spotted a young Poppy Dharsono and Sarita Thaib as well as Okky Asokawati gracing the pages of Femina, all photographed by Firman Ichsan. However, swimsuits were modeled by Caucasian girls well into the 1980s. Already in 1974, Femina began to feature

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“Made in Indonesia” fashion, with spreads that would be in black and white and then, increasingly, in color. By the end of the 1980s, the quality of the paper had vastly improved, photos were fully professional, everyone was credited, and there were capable editors in charge of the magazine. Femina was firmly established as being about lifestyle in contemporary times, with articles on fashion, beauty, food (recipes), patterns for dressmaking (discontinued by the late 1980s), short stories, and the occasional article on a life issue. If the issue could not be openly discussed, such as homosexuality, the writer would use for reference some Australian example, presenting it as peculiar foreign behavior— readers would have to read between the lines and draw conclusions for themselves. Today, Femina, priced at IDR 38,000 (approx. $2.50), boasts a dedicated website with a blog featuring freelance contributions and the full range of social media platforms. It can easily be downloaded for online reading and its app is available for iPhone and Android users. The basic format—the DNA of the magazine, as Svida Alisjahbana calls it—is the same as when it began, but it has been wholly updated for the twenty-first century. Femina is not about high fashion, though it might occasionally reference it, and its models are more like girls next door. Cover girls may be celebrities, rather than models, and the fashion featured may be practical, such as office suits for the modern woman. There is also a lot more busana muslim than in Dewi, reflecting a current preference among the middle/lower middle-classes and requests from readers, especially younger hijabers.26 There are articles giving advice on love, sex, and relationships, articles about health, and articles about issues in the news that may be resonating with the readership. Some articles discuss political matters, as for example the KUHP reforms (criminal law) in the April 2018 magazine. Femina also runs the competition Face of Femina, which has become the traditional feeder for Miss Indonesia, with readers invited to vote for the twenty Face finalists. I will return to this in Chapter six. Celebrities are a constant reference point, for fashion and beauty and, generally, their life is scrutinized for the benefit of an eager readership. Magazine issues tend to have a theme, thus for example the April 2018 issue was about “Power,” whereas the May 2018 issue was about “Beauty,” with three different Indonesian ethnic types chosen to model for the cover. Femina prides itself in encouraging budding writers, thus it continues to feature short stories. Its book reviews section includes fiction, from Indonesia and international (in translation). The use of English is also less frequent than in Dewi, although it is definitely present, reflecting the preference of a less cosmopolitan readership, but inevitably one attuned to the global world of today and its technological advances that require English as a lingua franca. Overall, Femina reflects the hopes and expectations of its middle/lower middle-class readership, which it wants to attract and retain. It portrays a more

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affordable but still desirable lifestyle, and it discusses issues closer to everyday life, from a female viewpoint. It is pro-women, but is definitely not a feminist publication. Encouraging entrepreneurship is important to the Femina Group, thus Femina discusses entrepreneurial ventures and has a dedicated website alongside the main one, to empower Indonesian women entrepreneurs. The website requires registration, provides mentorship, and is a collaborative effort with the Australian Aid Program.27 The survival of Femina in the twenty-first century has been attributed to the thorough digitalization of its content and the effort to identify different lifestyle communities and different age groups that could be targeted through the various platforms, understanding their needs. Petty S. Fatimah, Editor in Chief of the magazine, believes that the readership does not worry about which “channel” it receives information from (print, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) but about it being immediately available. Thus, Femina’s platforms cater to a specific need, real-life stories through Facebook, and more visual content through Instagram and Pinterest. However, it is not certain whether advertisers can be persuaded of the strength of women’s lifestyle media. This is indeed the greatest challenge for the continuation of Femina in the current climate.28

The international franchises: Harper’s Bazaar and Prestige Under the New Order the press was regulated, censorship was in place, and there were restrictions concerning foreign investments in the publishing industry. Svida Alisjahbana recounts that “despite everything, this period was fortunate for us . . . at the time, you needed a permit from the Ministry of Information to operate and they only granted permits to about 100 publications across the board in Indonesia. Frankly speaking, it was a blessing for companies like Femina Group because it let the indigenous magazine market grow and develop first.”29 However, it is not so black and white, with a neat “before” and “after” the New Order. Already in the 1990s, the restrictions on foreign capital were being eroded to favor the financial interests of those closely associated with the Suharto family. Thus in 1997, Hearst Magazines International (Hearst Corporation), publishers of Cosmopolitan, started the Indonesian-language Kosmopolitan, which “piggybacked on the publication permit of a languishing health magazine, Higina.”30 Officially PT Higina Alhadin, the publishing company, did not list any foreign shares but paid an undisclosed “copyright fee” to Hearst, setting a precedent. As Krishna Sen and David Hill note, “the world’s best-known women’s magazine . . . had broken financial and language barriers to another populous market.”31

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After May 1998, restrictions on licenses were lifted, with more than 500 permits to start a new publication being issued within just six months by the new Ministry of Information. The New Investment Law of 2007 made it possible for foreign capital to circulate more freely. The same law also regulates franchising quite extensively, with some recent revisions that are protectionist in nature, introducing the 80 percent rule.32 It is unclear how this applies to media, as in the case of international magazines/media the patterns followed by franchises vary. It may be a license given to a local publisher or a joint venture, rather than outright foreign ownership. I have earlier discussed the phenomenon of media conglomeration within Indonesia and will not reprise it at this point except to say that it is but a reflection of what is happening at a global level, with a consolidation of fashion media into fewer publishing houses and the rise of major international conglomerates such as Hearst, Bauer, and Mondadori.33 My focus in this section is on specific examples of franchise magazines, to compare them with the local ones and establish points of convergence and divergence. The raison d’etre of these fashion magazines is, of course, fashion, therefore it is wholly predictable that they would follow the international fashion cycles in any given year (Autumn/Winter and Spring/Summer collections), inexistent in Indonesia as seasons clearly differ in the tropics. As these magazines are international, they will not have full-blown coverage of local fashion weeks, they will report instead on fashion from the “major world capitals,” thus perpetuating the hierarchy, at least in the print version—there is greater freedom with Instagram for example, where images of an APPMI or IPMI show might be posted. They will, however, feature “Made in Indonesia” in a few, carefully selected, articles in print and also, increasingly so, online. It is important to understand that life for the Indonesian editors of franchise magazines can often be like walking on a tightrope. Indonesia is a free country but some topics have to be treated with great sensitivity, which means that articles printed in other international versions of the magazine cannot always be reprinted in Indonesia. This applies of course to lifestyle rather than fashion qua fashion. Indonesia has very strict anti-pornography laws, a conservative attitude to LGBT, gay marriage is not allowed, abortion is only available for “health reasons,” and there is still a ban in place on the Communist party, which means it cannot be discussed or referenced in public, for any reason. The former editor of Cosmopolitan (no longer with a K), Fira Basuki, whose tenure at the magazine was for ten years until 2016, has given a very vivid description of what it has been like to be in her position, tasked with ensuring compliance with Indonesian laws and through her capable leadership avoiding getting entangled in law suits.34 The case of Playboy, not a fashion magazine, but an iconic luxury lifestyle one, aimed at men but with women readers too and famous for its engaging articles by known writers and intellectuals, and with an equally famous nude Play Girl of the Month, was a real test for Indonesian democracy and its freedom of

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speech. Even though the Indonesian version carried no nudity whatsoever, its editor Erwin Arnada was threatened with jail in 2007 and finally acquitted only in 2011, when the court found that he was not guilty. Hard-core Muslims were deeply offended by the magazine, which to them was the epitome of pornography, and had demanded its suppression all along, adducing as a reason that Islam is the religion of the majority of Indonesians and therefore their sensibilities must be respected. Having left journalism to write and direct, still a fierce believer in a free press, Arnada was interviewed in Singapore in 2018. His comments are a reminder that things are still deeply unsettled and rather volatile in contemporary Indonesia: “It’s easy to sell religion to influence the community . . . When you use poverty, when you use religion to frame an issue, our people buy it. Religion is a commodity right now in Indonesia. It can be sold for political ends.”35 All this might seem rather far removed from fashion, but on reflection, it is not, for fashion as a cultural phenomenon is but entangled with political discourse.

Harper’s Bazaar: Iconic US magazine transplanted in Indonesia Let me start with an example. It is the year 2017. Two issues of Harper’s Bazaar, the Indonesian and the UK one, feature older models. Harper’s Bazaar Indonesia May 2017 has an editorial with seven former Indonesian “supermodels” (Wiwied Muljana Subowo, Olga Lydia, Selma Abidin, Ira Duaty, Susan Bachtiar, Mira Sayogo, and Enditha Wibisono),36 whereas on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar UK July 2017 (collector’s edition), there is Frances Dunscombe, an 84-year-old who only began modeling in 2015. Dunscombe is photographed with Jan de Villeneuve, an iconic 1960s model now in her seventies, both surrounded by much younger models, including a two-year-old child. The models are of different body shapes and ethnic backgrounds, such as the curvy Malaysian-Italian Emma Breschi and Neelam Gill, who appeared in the 2015 Burberry Campaign, the first British Indian model to bag a global campaign of that scale. There are some synergies here between the two Bazaar magazines but also some very marked contrasts. The UK Bazaar with its eclectic cluster of models was a special edition. The regular July 2017 issue had on its cover “body activist” Ashley Graham, a most visible curvy model hailing from the US, and a spokesperson for self-acceptance —her 2015 TED Talk “Plus size? More like my size,” was viewed more than 2.5 million times, globally (at the time of writing).37 The editorial feature was entitled “Shoulder to Shoulder,” and it appeared in both the regular and the

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collector’s edition. It was accompanied by an article penned by Teresa Fitzherbert, “Our Stories,” with information about the models, collecting their statements about beauty and themselves. The July 2017 issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK was a “diversity” issue, with a judicious mix of Indian, Caribbean, and Caucasian models, paying attention to their size and age and emphasizing “body confidence.” The editorial feature inside the magazine did not include middleaged models, it went from the very young and young, with just one model, Jade Parfitt, in her late thirties. Conversely, the Indonesian Harper’s Bazaar was the regular May 2017 issue with British actress Sienna Miller, who often doubles up as a model, on the cover—Miller was also on the cover of the April 2017 UK issue and a few other international issues of Harper’s Bazaar; it is a routine practice of franchise magazines to have the same cover girl on issues published in different countries, either simultaneously or consecutively. The editorial here under scrutiny, on page 156, was entitled “The Reunion,” and it was about models of yesterday as they are today, representing middle-aged women in their forties and fifties, proud of their looks and of themselves, confident older women, some still modeling, some with new jobs ranging from participation as a creative in the art world, to acting and entrepreneurship. The feature was about fashion but also lifestyle, somewhat relaxed in tone, with an accompanying video on YouTube, which allows the magazine to reach out to a broader readership who may not be willing or able to pay IDR 59,000 for an issue. The models wore “Made in Indonesia” clothes (Jeffrey Tan, Major Minor, Sapto Djojok Artiko). The feature, much like the earlier mentioned one with Sarita Thaib in Dewi, did not seem to be motivated by a need to tick a box and provide evidence that the magazine embraces, or has to embrace, diversity, which was the impression conveyed by Harper’s Bazaar UK. Rather, it seemed to be the result of a genuine engagement with its thirty-five plus, upper middle-class, core readership, leading to reminiscences about “the way we were.” “The Reunion” was also a nod to the December 2011 UK issue of Harper’s Bazaar, with the 1990s international supermodels Yasmin Le Bon, Helena Christensen, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Eva Herzigova, thus immediately identifying Harper’s as a global player. Magazines with an international presence make it a point to recycle in their Asian versions, judiciously, some editorial content that first appeared in the US or UK magazine, with adaptations. Additionally, the online version of Harper’s Bazaar Indonesia May 2017 carried an article with syndicated photographs about known older models from the US and Europe, such as American nonagenarian Iris Apfel, one of a bunch of zany older women made famous by photographer and author Ari Seth Cohen through his photographic blog Advanced Style, which features “the sartorial savvy of the senior set”, and British, now nonagenarian, Daphne Selfe, known for her appearance in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous.38

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The article provided a counterpoint to “The Reunion,” and it signaled an attempt to pave the way for future articles in the print magazine featuring older Caucasian models, perhaps appearing together with local ones, implicitly hinting at possible developments.39 We can see through the example just discussed, how a franchise magazine works, how content is recycled and adapted, the different demands made on its editors, the interconnections between the various international versions, and also their differences. Some of the body image themes lurking behind this account will be reprised at a later juncture, here it is enough to have an overview of the impact of the magazine and how it locates itself as a purveyor of fashion, beauty, and style in a transnational context.

Prestige: Luxury lifestyle and “beautiful people” Monthly fashion and lifestyle magazine Prestige, in French and English, is from Lebanon, launched in 1993 by NPI in Beirut and with a Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia edition. Targeting women from the age of twentyfive upwards, Prestige has evolved into a luxury lifestyle magazine, covering international fashion and more. It provides a counterpoint to the hegemony of Anglo-American franchises. Prestige Indonesia, priced at IDR 90,000, has a dedicated website, with a downloadable app. Advertising of luxury brands provides revenue, as would be expected. Prestige Indonesia is fully Indonesian, even though it is part-owned by a Lebanese company. It features successful women as role models and many socialites—in fact it is all about the “beautiful people.” Prestige endorses upperclass cosmopolitanism in all its main articles. The fashion it features is international but with enough “Made in Indonesia” to make its Indonesian readership comfortable. It describes itself as a leading luxury lifestyle and high-society magazine, about celebrity and status, luxury and leisure, style, and culture with “a most distinctive and unrivalled passion for fashion.”40 The March 2018 issue was rather interesting as it represented an Indonesian response to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement that began in Hollywood with the denunciation of Weinstein’s sexual abuses. It was a “feminist” issue, using the Hollywood infamous case as a means to damn discrimination, inequality, and violence against women in Indonesia. With “Women First” on its cover, it gathered six well-known Indonesian women, ranging from actor Hannah Al Rashid; entrepreneur Widi Wardhana; Executive Board Member of Kelola, Linda Hoemar Abidin; Southeast Asia Christie’s Deputy Chairman, Charmie Hamami; CFO of Plataran Indonesia, Anandita Makes Adoe; and leader of Maxima Realty Group, Laura Hasjim.

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Photographed in Dior, Hannah Al Rashid wore the iconic t-shirt by Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director of Maison Dior, with the slogan “We should all be feminists.”41 The six women, all prominent public figures, addressed in their interviews a number of issues concerning Indonesian women today. Hannah Al Rashid, Indo-French movie star and activist with more than 129,000 followers on Instagram, and a vlog (video-blog) about her life in Jakarta,42 passionately stated that “women being beaten up by their husbands is real. Children being molested by paedophiles is real. And women experiencing sexual harassment on a daily basis is real.”43 It was indeed quite a coup for Prestige to have such a feature, mixing high fashion with political activism. It might simply have been a way to make a profit out of a hashtag and a social movement gone viral across the globe—it has now reached Mongolia but it has home-grown Indonesian supporters, as Ally Foster reports44—with the possibility of boosting circulation. However, the article stood out from the silence and disinterest of other mainstream magazines, and it made the point that sexual abuse and violence towards women cut across class,45 encouraging Indonesian women to no longer be passive recipients of sexual abuse and violence. Not what one would expect of a luxury lifestyle magazine.

Alternative online publishing, blogging, and social media We have seen how fashion, beauty, and style are mediated through the range of women’s magazines available in Indonesia, and how problematic it is to separate print and online media, as they are effectively a continuum. This means that the magazines, through their online presence, can be accessed anywhere within and outside Indonesia, often on mobile phones through apps, successfully ensuring a transnational, global reach. We have also seen how despite efforts made at differentiating between the local press and the franchise magazines, that difference reveals itself not to be substantial. Magazines such as Dewi and the Indonesian version of Harper’s Bazaar, though not identical, share a cultural cosmopolitanism and a transnational reach, addressing the same ideal reader, a woman of wealth, taste, and power—constituted through a process of objectification, as Bourdieu has noted.46 Online publishing is one of the most fascinating phenomena of the twenty-first century. As well as hastening a global conglomeration of fashion media and an increasing homogenization of fashion journalism, utterly reliant on advertising and sponsorship, it has also been instrumental in imposing Western standards of beauty and fashion on a global scale. But it also contains within it the seeds of subversion, allowing a range of alternative voices to be heard, fostering a healthy opposition to the sameness of the mainstream women’s press. This section is

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about those other voices, at variance with the beauty standards and the gender ideology perpetuated by the mainstream magazines. I examine an online magazine (or e-zine, if one agrees with e-zine and online magazines being one and the same) at the forefront of such critical stances, and then consider the explosion of bloggers/vloggers and their deployment of social media beyond received ideas of elegance and taste. I then reflect on its aftermath, the swift absorption within marketing strategies of blogging techniques, and the social media impact on the diffusion of fashion, beauty, and style, through the rise of the self-branding influencer.

Magdalene: For women by women As said, Magdalene: A slanted guide to women and issues,47 is not a fashion publication, but a woman’s digital magazine covering current issues pertaining to gender and sexuality, lifestyle, health and beauty, love and relationships, and spirituality. In English and in Bahasa, it began publishing in 2013, from Jakarta, where its head office is. Devi Asmarani is its Chief Editor and Hera Diani its Managing Editor, with Ayunda Nurvitasari as full-time reporter, also in charge of managing social media. Both Asmarani and Hera are professional journalists. Magdalene relies on contributors for the articles it features and on the resultant creation of a community of loyal, dedicated readers, from every corner of the globe. Contributors are mostly unpaid but publishing with Magdalene is something that women—and some men—really want. Magdalene gives them an opportunity to speak. In the words of its editors, the magazine “is the fruit of our vision of an online publication that offers fresh perspectives beyond the typical gender and cultural confines. We channel the voices of feminists, pluralists and progressives, or just those who are not afraid to be different, regardless of their genders, colors, or sexual preferences. We aim to engage, not alienate.”48 Magdalene is written by women for, largely, other women. It is serious in tone but never supercilious, being fun and amusing is allowed. The “Issues” section is meaty, dealing with politics, society, the environment, faith, and of course the state of women. The “Lifestyle” section features a horoscope, a traditional feature in women’s magazines. Aiysyah Llewellyn writes this regular column and it can be quite tongue-in-cheek, a way to provide serious commentary on current issues or problems in a different register. “Ask Madge” performs the role of a traditional agony aunt column, except that the advice given is not of the traditional kind. The questions are genuinely sent in by readers, whose real names are not revealed. Issues of health and beauty are discussed in the section named, “Health and Beauty,” though they might also appear in the “I am Magdalene” sub-section of “Issues.” It is here that body positivity is articulated and women feel free to ask questions about the beauty standards upheld by the

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fashion and beauty industry in Indonesia, a reflection of Western standards, and which are perpetuated through mainstream women’s magazines. Thus, for example, Aya Sadariskar writes about curly hair,49 regarded as ugly in Indonesia, and Azalea Johannes about the obsession with height in beauty pageants (not to mention modeling) in a country where the average woman is between 150–160 cm, as also the obsession with a fair complexion. “My hope for Puteri Indonesia [Miss Indonesia],” she writes, “is an even greater growth and embrace of inclusivity. I want girls across Indonesia to watch the pageant and see themselves represented in not just one [a token participant with a darker complexion] of the 39 beautiful contestants but in the winners as well.”50 All pieces are open for comments, moderated, which ensures a conversation can unfold about topics that are identified as relevant. Magdalene is kept going by select advertising in different forms, and it also sells merchandise with the Magdalene logo through the Magdalene Shop, there are various plans for the future, outlined on the website, for which fund-raising is crucial, but one thing is certain, the magazine has been able to pull through many hurdles since its inception because it has struck a chord with the younger (and not-so-young) generation of Indonesian women (and men) who feel the mainstream media does not really represent them and does not offer them a space to air their concerns. Asked to comment about the condition of women in Indonesia, Dewi Asmarani says: “We live in a country that is still largely conservative religiously and socially, but the good thing is that we don’t live in a country that is ruled by the religious law, though some parts of Indonesia have adopted their own version of the Syari’ah, especially Aceh. However, there is a growing trend of conservatism being applied to a lot of aspects of our lives that negatively affect women . . . The biggest priority, I think, is to make women issues everyday issues . . . And that’s what Magdalene’s trying to do.” Contributors send photos, illustrations, and videos with their pieces, but Magdalene utilizes the talent of Adhitya Pattisahusiwa and Stu Astuti as illustrators, which provides the visual identity of the publication.

Bloggers/vloggers, Instagram, and YouTube Personal style blogging, recently discussed by Rosie Findlay among others, is a global phenomenon that had its heyday in the period from 2007 to 2015. Findlay regards blogging as a means for an online performance of the self and as an expression of an individual fashion sense and aesthetic.51 Not long after its explosion, mainstream media caught up with blogging, and “bloggers”—or freelance journalists disguised as bloggers—began to contribute to online versions of publications, which were keen to assimilate blog content for its street cultural capital. The bloggers’ contribution has not featured directly in

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Indonesian women’s magazines as much as it has elsewhere, though Femina, as noted, has a blog section. Bloggers/vloggers (video-bloggers)52 have thus gone from an initial drive to be somewhat subversive in their take on fashion and in their reaffirmation of individuality, to selling their blogging services to brands, through sponsored content, or turning themselves into brands. Blogging in Indonesia has been a huge phenomenon, with bloggers writing in English as well as in Bahasa, aware of their potential global reach.53 Ade Aprilia and Nana Listiani in their 2014 book, listed forty-five top fashion bloggers—the super-bloggers of Indonesia, la crème de la crème.54 Of the independent Indonesian bloggers whom he studied in the context of the contemporary fashion and music relationship, drawing a parallel with punk rebellious attitudes, Luvaas says that for a while they succeeded in refashioning themselves “as participants, no matter how marginalized, in a larger transnational network of designers and labels that once abruptly dismissed them . . . [and] have embodied fashion as a way out of isolation and containment [and] made promotion into a tool of self-advancement.”55 However, he wonders whether “the newly empowered subjects of a democratizing fashion industry” are in fact “new pawns” of neoliberalism through their self-monitoring and self-promotion. It is a conclusion that dovetails with that of Rocamora who writes about blogging as a global phenomenon and says that “bloggers conform to the canons of fashion media and play by their rules.”56 Indeed, magazines in Indonesia have been quick to endorse individual blogs and bloggers, and Instagrammers, now collectively denoted as influencers, to demonstrate awareness of “what is trending now.”57 At an event hosted by the Goethe Institute in Jakarta in April 2017, fashion blogger-turned-author Claradevi Handriatmaja, known as Claradevi in the blogosphere, bemoaned the lack of preparation of many younger bloggers “who do not have experience in fashion nor writing.” She started blogging in 2007 and continues to do so today on a variety of lifestyle topics, drawing, as many bloggers do, on her own life experiences and eventually creating a digital brand for her blog Lucedale, supported by an Instagram account with 104,000 followers (at the time of writing). She told the audience that “today’s era of social media has emboldened novices to claim they play a crucial part in the fashion world and laud themselves as self-proclaimed fashion critics . . . to be a fashion blogger, it is said that the most important thing you must have is a good camera.”58 The younger bloggers, she maintains, know fashion, but they lack an understanding of its meaning and, by extension, the know-how of styling. She sees bloggers as “a bridge between brands and society,” and believes they have a huge responsibility to their followers, whose lives they impact. It is interesting that Claradevi subtly repositions herself as a fashion expert, hinting at a fashion competence derived from her having consecutively blogged for more than a decade. In doing so, she rehearses the well-known argument of fashion editors, purveyors of fashion criticism, about the ludicrousness of the

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opinions of personal style bloggers, regarding them, rather unkindly, as impostors. Suzie Menkes, fashion editor for the International Herald Tribune, said in 2013, “there is something ridiculous about the self-aggrandizement of some online arbiters who go against the mantra that I was taught in my earliest days as a fashion journalist: it is not good because you like it; you like it because it is good.”59 As I write, the phenomenon of personal style blogging (less so vlogging) appears to be on the wane. It is being supplanted by the rise of multi-platform influencers, who may have begun as personal style bloggers, increasingly using Instagram and the micro-blogging it affords as effective tools to establish their presence with authority, relying on the immediacy of Instagram’s visuality to reach out to their composite audiences. Blogging as such is not quite dead, but personal style blogging may have reached a dead end. The Indonesian “DIY” fashion blogs that Brent Luvaas described in 2013,60 are no longer active as indie blogs. They have either been discontinued or they have transitioned into blogs that from driving, through their content, a range of social media channels, are now being driven by them, especially Instagram, with blog posts playing second-fiddle to an Insta-post. The bloggers have increasingly reinvented themselves and become their own personal brand. Thus, for example, influencer Ayla Dimitri’s ascent from style blogger to jetsetting “content creator,” model and brand ambassador, and ultimately her own “Ayla Dimitri” brand, typifies this trajectory. Ayla, now just over thirty, with a background in media studies and fashion styling, following various internships at a range of fashion magazines, and a job as fashion editor at Style.com, began a blog in 2011 on Blogspot.com with the tongue-in-cheek title The More You Know The Less You Enjoy.61 Hers was a personal style blog that relied on visual content and short written pieces to showcase her professional styling skills. She quickly diversified, with an Instagram account that currently has 234,000 followers, a YouTube channel with a more modest 14,000 followers, a Twitter account with 2,705 followers, and a Facebook page that lists her as “creative director at Ayla Dimitri.” The transmutation of Ayla Dimitri, the blogger, into “Ayla Dimitri” the brand has been complete. She is now planning to launch her very own makeup line.62 Ayla travels extensively and presents to the world an ideal lifestyle with perfectly curated images, taken by her with her own camera, sometimes helped by her personal manager, but professionally edited, especially the videos. She has been invited to sit front row at fashion shows all over the globe,63 has opened runway shows and modeled, despite not being of a typical model frame, for several designers, and has endorsed many beauty products and fashion brands, all of which appear on her YouTube channel every week. Altogether, she embodies the cosmopolitan dream lifestyle endorsed by the top-end fashion magazines, projecting herself as an Indonesian “It girl” of the

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twenty-first century. Thus, she never comments on social or political issues. She told me that it would harm her image. Her success is predicated on an assumed intellectual blandness and total lack of opinions, beyond mildly critical appreciation of a product. In reality, Ayla Dimitri is a very smart and hardworking young woman. But her real self and her public persona are not meant to coincide. In an interview for Indonesia Tatler, which describes her as “a beautiful fashion maven,” she gives a few careful tips on how to achieve the perfect Insta-look and how to make good videos for YouTube.64 In another interview (in Bahasa) for Youthmanual, an online career advisory platform, she discusses her transition to “content creator,” whom she describes as someone who makes content across different online media. It is one of the few interviews in which one catches a glimpse of the real Ayla Dimitri. In the photos accompanying the interview, she looks every inch like a regular urban Indonesian young woman of today rather than the poised fashionista of her perfect Instagram account. She believes that the profession of content creator, though new, has great potential in Indonesia, because the e-commerce industry is growing, and there is a need for professional editorial content. She also believes that YouTube is the next big thing, as the platform needs plenty of curated content. As she says, “who on earth is watching TV these days? Everyone’s glued to a computer screen.”65 Or a smart phone. The rise of Ayla Dimitri is in no way atypical of the global blogosphere, and the metamorphosis of personal style blogging into media brands is now rather common. Findlay is of the view that these developments are because of “the unprecipitated rise of independent media enterprises run by individuals and predicated on their personal identities, participating in the industry as powerful media-makers and employing the same logics and practices as the established fashion media to craft a profitable business.”66 It has happened in Indonesia, as elsewhere, because Indonesia is an active participant in the global fashion system. As noted by Kate Nelson Best, diversification and expansion of bloggers is but a mirror of the conglomeration of media and the establishment of franchises.67 Moreover, she adds, bloggers-as-personalities are underpinned by the longevity of celebrity culture and the relationship of fashion media with celebrities. Thus, social media platforms, with their instant mediation of fashion, beauty, and style are set forth as a most effective marketing tool by a range of brands, in what appears to be a largely woman-led subcategory of the Indonesian fashion economy.

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5 VISITING MALLS AND BUYING ONLINE: SHOPPING FOR STYLE Jakarta is a megacity,1 the twenty-fourth in the world according to the UN, characterized by what Winarso describes as “urban dualism,” with a marked separation along the lines of class and wealth. It is a city at once ultra-modern and conservatively traditional, with upscale residential areas behind which lie crowded slums and the close-knit kampungs (villages) of the lower and under class.2 The city underwent a newer spurt of continuous urban development in the 1990s, which saw a flurry of building activities in areas further away from the city centre, carried out without a coherent urban planning strategy. This has resulted, for example, in a lack of space for pedestrians in many of the newly built-up areas, with pavements altogether absent outside the central area of Menteng, and far too few stretches of green, in a city that is very densely populated, so much so that people will joke that the only parks in Jakarta are car parks. Jakarta’s metropolitan development in post-Suharto times until today has been reshaped while pursuing a neoliberal political economy that continues to embrace “long-standing and resilient oligarchic power structures.”3 An expression of this could be seen in a series of urban land transformations, developer and global finance driven, featuring high-rise buildings with shopping malls modeled on global city centers from around the world, aimed at “facilitating a consumptionled strategy of recovery from 1997 and the active restructuring of [economic and political] elite informality.”4 The shopping mall had its beginnings in Minnesota in 1956, with the Southdale Center designed by Victor Gruen,5 and it found its way across the globe. It has now superseded and incorporated the urban department stores and, with considerable adaptations and transpositions, it has become the cornerstone of capitalist consumption as also a locus of social production. In Indonesia, malls arrived in the 1990s and continued to proliferate in the first decade of the new century.6 A prime megamall of the 1990s, the six-storeyed Taman Anggrek, in Northwest Jakarta, was an example of “a gated community where living, 109

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shopping and recreation are combined,”7 offering a model that would be followed by other mall projects, incorporating amenities such as swimming pools and secure private gardens, restaurants, gyms, a number of musholla (for prayers), and cinemas, often an IMAX mega-cinema. Malls are now virtually ubiquitous in Indonesia, found in any major urban center, not just in Jakarta—Kuta, in the island of Bali, close to Kuta Beach, is currently a series of consecutive shopping malls, whereas Yogyakarta in Central Java counts more than seventy-five malls. Indonesian malls are similar in their basic structure, such as how retail space is allocated to brands or where facilities such as ATMs should be located, usually on top floors and in the basement. But they also differ, each mall claiming a unique identity for itself, with some malls, particularly in Jakarta, specializing in a retail genre. The available range of retailed goods in each mall varies, however, depending on the location—predictably, the malls in the capital tend to be better stocked than malls in other parts of the country. The highest concentration of shopping malls is to be found in Jakarta, with more than one hundred and seventy malls, and an average of four shopping malls within a 4 km radius, the so-called “mall sprawl” phenomenon, initially intended as a measure to beat congestion by allowing shoppers to easily reach their nearest mall. According to a study by the Indonesian Shopping Centres Association (APPBI), the average shopper, identified as being female, spends about three hours on each visit to the mall.8 Since 2011 there has been a moratorium (reviewed every year and not completely banning, only limiting) on building new shopping malls in Jakarta city, which means that developers have been looking to other urban centers, such as Surabaya in East Java, as suitable places for a splurge of new malls. Indonesian mall ownership is in the hands of large groups that also own banks and hotels— Grand Indonesia Mall, for example, is owned by the Hartono brothers. They also control 55 percent of Bank Central Asia (BCA) and are major shareholders of the Djarum kretek cigarette company, as well as several other business concerns, within and outside Indonesia, with a net worth of US $14 billion in 2017, according to Forbes.9 Several malls, though Indonesian-owned, have had considerable foreign capital injected in them. Some malls are virtually foreignowned but with the necessary Indonesian shareholding presence needed for foreign investments to be allowed in the country. In addition, there has been a relaxation of rules concerning foreign land ownership in more recent years. For example, Japanese capital, throughout the period starting from around 2006 and continuing into the present, has tended to control large sections of the metropolis, from convenience stores and shopping malls to infrastructural development and manufacturing.10 The shopping malls of Jakarta are public spaces, places where predominantly middle-class people go to spend their time. They are a separate world from that

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of the streets of Jakarta, which in the middle-class narrative are seen as dirty, enveloped by pollution, and the “natural” home of beggars. The shopping mall is thus a middle-class enclave, where the only visibly lower-class people to be found are mall attendants or household maids food shopping in the large supermarkets usually located in the mall’s basement. People go to malls to socialize, eat, wait for the traffic to subside before going home at the end of a workday, watch a movie, have work meetings, read, connect to the WiFi, window shop or actually shop, use the ATM, and enjoy the air-conditioning. Security guards are everywhere, preventing “undesirables” from walking in. There are plenty of food outlets, cafés, restaurants, and even bars where alcohol is served.11 These eateries are undoubtedly much more expensive than the myriad warungs (street stalls) that dot the streets of Jakarta, especially at nighttime, but they provide a safe, private, and cool environment.12 Safety is paramount; as Abidin Kusno writes, “not only is the shopping mall the symbol of the new city, but in post-1998 Jakarta the centrality of the mall is also closely connected to middle-class anxieties over the worsening street crime in Jakarta.”13 Altogether, the shopping malls of Jakarta are an “artificial bubble,” as Kate Lamb describes them, and a bourgeois dream, giving the illusion of being in some indistinct city of the world.14 Malls as a socio-cultural locus have featured in the study of the Jakarta middle-class and its lifestyle conducted by Lizzy van Leeuwen throughout the 1990s,15 and in the already mentioned examination of Jakarta urban planning by Winarso. Plaza Indonesia, arguably the premier Jakarta mall, has been focused upon by Jennifer Goodlander who identifies it as a stage for a performance of modernity. More recently, Widiyani has discussed shopping behavior in Jakarta malls from a marketing perspective, with managerial implications.16 However, despite the sophisticated theoretical analysis of the role of postcolonial malls in the creation of “specific Third World subjectivities,” with young consumers participating in the “retail theatre” through a masquerade,17 overall there have been no up-to-date analyses of malls in Indonesia comparable with Arlene Dávila’s insightful ethnography of the hypermodern malls of Latin America. In her account, Dávila bares the nuanced dynamics of the socio-cultural construction of Latin American shoppers’ identities, with a mall hegemony seemingly undented by the advent of online shopping.18 I do not propose to fill this gap nor am I attempting to map out the complex dynamics of Indonesian shopping malls in the larger domestic and international retailscape. I am principally interested in the shopping mall as a site where fashion, beauty, and style are consumed by Indonesian women, even though I am fully aware that Indonesian malls are a fascinating microcosm and an arena of ludic activities underpinned by a display and consumption of Baudrillardian hypermodernity.19 As such, they would deserve a study in their own right, beyond the focus on strategic marketing to enhance and optimize customer behavior.

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Indisputably, the shopping mall of urban Indonesia remains, at present, a key site for fashion consumption, intersecting with its presentation and performance through the many seasonal mall events; but one also needs to consider the challenge to traditional retailing posed by e-commerce, currently present through a number of platforms and attempting to widen the customer base, while keeping costs down. The mall has not been threatened from its position of supremacy in the overall shopping practices of contemporary Indonesians, but, undeniably, it is under pressure to take in its stride the hyper-connectivity of the age in which we live. I conclude the chapter by examining the phenomenon of the jastip, the informal service of personal shopping assistance that relies almost entirely on social media and individual enterprise, and which provides a casual link between shopping in malls and shopping online, with the potential of transforming (fashion) shopping as Indonesians practice it.

Fashion allure for middle-class purses Luxury brands20—even when not prefixed by the adjective “Western,” luxury brands are understood to be high-end Western brands, such as Vuitton and Dior—began to be available in Jakarta in the second half of the 1990s, as previously mentioned. Earlier, wealthy Indonesians had to fly to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, or Hong Kong for short shopping trips; some still do. In their brief account of the penetration of high-end labels in Asia, Chadha and Husband identify the “malling of Asia” as the “midwife to the birth of the cult [of luxury], making available upscale retail space, the ambience and atmospherics consistent with the high-end image that luxury brands need.”21 Their account of the relationship that Indonesians have with luxury brands appears to be somewhat under-researched and anecdotal. However, their observations on the connection between brands, malls, and sophisticated window dressing to heighten the sense of luxury of the goods in order to appeal to their potential customers, and enhance the experiential value, dovetail with other research focused on establishing variations in attitude among Asian consumers’ value perception of luxury brands.22 When we look at Jakarta malls, a hierarchy among them is apparent, with the high-end ones, such as Plaza Indonesia, weaving a narrative of luxury consumption through their in-store fashion displays, with beauty and style intermingling with nuanced expressions of status and prestige. More mid-range malls address a considerably less wealthy and perhaps less stylish consumer, for whom the Zara, Bershka, H&M, and Marks and Spencer franchises (also available at malls such as Plaza Indonesia but not on the ground floor prime locations) may provide a more affordable yet, in their perception, still high-end shopping

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experience. These brands, regarded as affordable in Western countries, are repositioned as premium in Indonesia in order to increase their profits, because “the company that enters the middle of the market with an average offering will find it extremely difficult to compete profitably over time.”23 Then there are malls like Mangga Dua, where one goes to find the counterfeit Prada bag, counterfeiting being more than just a cottage industry in Indonesia,24 or Thamrin City, sometimes described as a “working class mall” (or lower end), where one can stock up on cheap hijabs and niqabs, including ones for little girls—in Indonesia, an increasing number of devout Muslim parents encourage pre-pubescent girls to wear mini-niqabs and abayas, and by doing so, according to some, they encourage the girls’ sexualization.25 Shopping tourism, the kind of international retail tourism focused on luxury shopping, is something that Indonesia has the potential to develop and which the Indonesian government hoped might be the way of the future when in September 2016 it launched the “Wonderful Indonesia Culinary and Shopping Festival” on World Tourism Day in collaboration with APPBI. However, Jakarta definitely lags behind shoppers’ paradises such as Dubai and Singapore. One of the major problems is the high import tariffs imposed on luxury items, with VAT refunds for foreign shoppers being rather complex, as also the rental hikes in malls, which are generally reflected in the pricing of goods,26 not to mention logistics—the congestion caused by traffic is a deterrent to “mall hopping,” which tourists enjoy doing as part of their shopping experience. By and large, mall shopping continues to be confined to a domestic, relatively affluent and very affluent middle-class, and many a shopper comes to Jakarta (or sends someone on their behalf through jastip) from the provinces to get the much prized Louis Vuitton item in high-end malls. Shopping for luxury brands and paying with a stash of cash is also a well-known way to launder money, where the sale is recorded without being able to trace the buyer.27 More recently, Indonesia has tightened up its anti-money laundering policies and is currently being considered for membership of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), after being on their blacklist until as late as 2015.28 Let’s look at malls more closely. As mentioned, Indonesian malls reserve the ground floor for luxury brands, whereas the basement has eateries, ATMs, supermarkets, and miscellaneous outlets. Restaurants and cafés and fast food joints are fairly ubiquitous on all floors, though they tend to be found concentrated on the upper floors or the lower ground floor. It is a pattern that, as earlier indicated, is shared by the majority of malls, with notable variants, although each mall has a different architectural design with a major focus on the atrium, quite distinct in each mall, aimed at enhancing the shopping experience by providing a fitting ambience, as noted by Kusumowidagdo.29 The interpretation given to the notion of luxury brand is also commensurate to the mall’s status and the class of shoppers the mall wishes to attract. At Kota Kasablanca, for example,

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Zara, the fast fashion retailer, occupies a large unit on the ground floor. The brand is foreign to Indonesia but is definitely not a luxury one, at least not in Europe. It appeals, however, to less affluent Indonesian middle-class shoppers, both male and female, and to them Zara is a premium brand. At Plaza Indonesia on level one (ground floor) the array of boutiques is impressive, from Alexander McQueen to Valentino and Louboutin—once or twice I spent an inordinate amount of time in there looking at and trying on outfits I would then decline to buy.30 On the second level, among others, there is Michael Kors, Zara, SebastianSposa and Iwan Tirta Private Collection. As one goes up levels, more Indonesian brands are found. The mall’s website can always be accessed for guidance—WiFi is available throughout the mall. It is important to note that no matter how well known and luxurious an Indonesian designer or brand is, they are not usually found on the ground floor of a mall, not in the older malls anyway, unwittingly conveying the impression of an intrinsic inferiority of Indonesian fashion vis à vis Western luxury brands.31 It is not cheap for Indonesian fashion brands to sell through a mall. Ghea Panggabean, for example, sold at Pondok Indah Mall in the 1990s, where she had a boutique right next to Biyan’s and later shared the boutique at Plaza Senayan with Biyan. She then left Plaza Senayan prioritizing her fashion studio in Menteng, whereas Biyan found a business partner, which allowed him to keep the Plaza Senayan boutique. Ghea also has outlets in other malls and department stores (Alun-Alun, Galeries Lafayette at Pacific Place, Sogo department store in Plaza Senayan), generally on consignment. She told me, in no uncertain terms, that contracts with malls often require advance payments for a five-year period. Malls also require a monthly service charge and a security fee, which means that overall their costs are pretty much prohibitive, especially for upcoming young designers and brands.32 For visitors, the mall environment enhances pleasurable shopping, “a consumption-oriented movement in a space where one has the possibility of making purchases . . . [where] the shopper elates to the environment from the point of view of consumption even though he or she does not make purchases all the time.”33 But whereas in the 1990s Jakarta malls were a novelty and may have quickly become a fulcrum of social life, as van Leeuwen reports, the love affair with malls has somewhat abated at the dawn of the 2020s. Malls are being viewed in a rather matter of fact way by most young (and older) Indonesians, and are even seen as boring.34 They might be a place where people gather and shop, but not everyone welcomes the development of a culture that promotes indiscriminate consumerism, turns shopping into the ideal “family time,” and encourages people to live beyond their means. Moreover, aggressive mall building practices are destroying Jakarta’s kampungs, making many people homeless and turning the city into a dull profusion of high-rise structures.35

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For their own survival, malls are increasingly trying to rev up by introducing exhibitions and collaborative fashion/art events as part of a more global strategy whereby luxury brands attempt to overcome their financial difficulties by “chasing sales” through associating themselves with the arts,36 and by providing plenty of entertainment through hiring singers and bands, in order to motivate people to visit, making a profit through the restaurants and bars. In such situations, people also end up shopping as a matter of course. It has also become customary for malls to offer substantial prizes to loyal customers who spend more than a certain amount, enticing shoppers to enter the lottery with a luxury car as its first prize, suitably exhibited in the atrium and regularly used by shoppers as a background for selfies. Since most shopping malls, high-end or otherwise, maintain a web presence, often with a blog presenting the newest fashion trends and with an email subscription system that allows customers to receive information on products, discounts and promos, shoppers tend to have a good idea of the availability of what they are looking for before stepping into the mall. There are also frequent opportunities to avail of sales and hunt for bargains. Inside malls, especially the mid-range ones, there are also stalls, turning parts of the mall into an indoor market, where locally made (or Chinese imported) cheap clothes and accessories are sold. This is because malls, by law, have to encourage, to an extent, local brands and local commerce. These mall markets tend to be rather crowded at the weekend and on Friday evenings. The mall is also a fashion runway, in the same way as the streets of New York and other major Western cities are. Here, women feel free to wear what they like, mini-skirts, shorts, high heels, cropped tops, and impeccably styled outfits, without worrying too much about blending in or being judged.37 Some women believe the mall offers them a sense of security, and they feel at liberty to express their individuality through their clothing when they go to the mall. However, the sense of freedom given by the mall is an artificial one, as writer Ayu Utami points out.38 Utami is a celebrated postmodern writer who famously turned down a modeling contract after winning the Femina Face of Indonesia competition in 1990 because she had no modeling ambitions. In 2001, she published a fictional story in the Balinese magazine Latitudes about shopping malls, in which she describes the malls as if she were an alien from another planet and focuses on the incongruity of the malls in bringing together “God and the market,” with reference to the way malls pay homage, as a marketing strategy, to religious festivals from Christmas to Ramadan. She describes the mall as “a world in brief.”39 Fashion shows, often taking place in shopping malls’ atriums, are a major attraction and even people without an invitation can enjoy them, as they can be viewed from the upper floors. In March 2017, Plaza Indonesia celebrated its twenty-seventh birthday with parties and performances on each floor, art exhibitions, something for the children—the Smurfs—and something for the

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more grown-up consumers, including hip-hop performances by Bandung-based band Mocca and the annual Plaza Indonesia Fashion Week (PIFW), ensuring the participation of top Indonesian designers and brands such as Auguste Soesastro, Danjyo Hiyoji, Didiet Maulana, Rama Dauhan, Pop U by Populo, and The Goods Dept, the latter gathering under its ban a cluster of independent designers. There were also international designers, represented by boutiques in the mall such as BCBG MAX AZRIA, Coast, Karen Millen, and Kate Spade.40 Ria Juwita, former house model of Paris-based Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto, a job she held down while studying in the French capital and working in retail, and also former manager at Maison Chanel, now senior manager of events and promotions at Plaza Indonesia, met me in October 2015 to tell me about her role and the female customer base of the mall. According to Juwita, Plaza Indonesia, one of the oldest and most prestigious malls in Jakarta, attracts visitors who go there to look at the boutiques, to be inspired by the clothes they see and, of course, to buy. There is a mix of people at Plaza Indonesia at any time of the day. One can spot women wearing their Louboutin in the supermarket in the basement, with their maids and nannies, but also office workers dropping in during their lunch break, as the mall’s cafés and restaurants are among the very best in town. “We want our customers and potential customers to feel confident in their own skin and develop an individual style that allows them to look their best. It is ultimately what we try to do through our fashion shows, which are illustrative of trends. My job here is to channel our customers’ aspiration to be stylish, giving them opportunities to develop their own unique sense of style, classic yet modern and contemporary, through the shows and events I put together, which address the affluent Indonesian woman of today.”41 She commented that Indonesian women tend to feel rather timid when it comes to experimentation with their clothing. They need reference points and tend not to stray from what is accepted/acceptable within their own circle and community. Middle-aged women often find it difficult to express their sense of style, they are afraid of doing things wrong.42 Attitudes are changing, but the women who have traveled the most and have lived abroad for a length of time are the ones who might be more daring and more in tune with their inner self. The luxury accessory, says Ria Juwita, is still essentially a status symbol, rather than an actual fashion accessory. “I want to encourage women to see them as accessories, to feel comfortable with them. Because that is what they ultimately are, accessories.”43 Juwita’s somewhat blasé attitude seems to be at variance with that of the arisan ladies—a ladies club and a social gathering made up of socialites and the mega-rich that combines charity with lottery—even though the arisan ladies are among the very customers that purchase the expensive bags displayed in the boutiques of Plaza Indonesia. For the arisan ladies, the branded bags are

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definitely more than just an accessory. In their book Kocok! The Untold Stories of Arisan Ladies and Socialites (2013), writers Joy Roesma and Nadya Mulya gently poke fun, describing how the ladies “gather in crowded restaurants, wearing top-notch makeup, couture outfits and extravagant salon-made hairdos with perfectly manicured finger nails, colorfully adorned with nail gel, and fingers lavishly adorned with diamond rings. On side chairs, their Celine, Chanel and Hermès bags, from Etribelt, Kelly, Lindy to Birkin Crocodile Himalaya, priced at almost Rp 1 billion (US$102,817), sit alongside the ladies as they pose in front of hired professional photographers.”44 It spells ostentatiousness. Indonesian malls, not even upmarket ones such as Plaza Indonesia, do not offer a personal shopper/personal stylist service, such as Macy’s in New York or Harvey Nichols in London. Personal shopping is widely known in Indonesia, but in a different variant, the jastip, which I will be discussing shortly and which has little to do with styling as such. However, image consultants and personal stylists are becoming fairly numerous and operate individually, online and through networks, as freelance consultants. A few may be bloggers who have diversified, and a few privately owned academies are on the rise, offering training in image consultancy and lifestyle coaching. The world of busana muslim is also catching up, thus there are a few online personal services that are available provided by “modest wear” consultants and professional stylists—I met a few of them at fashion shows, returning home with several business cards. In Indonesia, designers are stylists by default, rather like an Italian “stilista,” a designer who also styles, creating the whole look.45 Ghea Panggabean, for example, told me she always styles her clients who come to the atelier to buy a new bespoke outfit, often discussing accessories with them in detail and asking them to bring them to the fitting, to decide the overall look. “So many of them ask me to make them look good, so I do it. I have no control on what they are going to do later, maybe their husband might say something . . . But I will advise and take a picture for reference.” Her daughter, Janna, believes that styling is so important that Ghea, as a brand, should offer an interactive fashion styling experience, which would be, as a service, relatively novel in Indonesia, though not unknown.46 There are now several personal styling apps available for iPhone and Android, such as Intelistyle. They tend to be for an American and European end user and require knowledge of English. They also tend to be linked to fast fashion brands, such as Zara, H&M, and Mango. In 2017, Yuna – Personal fashion matchmaker, was launched in Indonesia by Wizendy Tedja, CEO of a new start-up based in Jakarta. Undoubtedly, as Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes inroads into fashion, there will be many more such apps, targeted specifically at the Indonesian end user. In early 2018, the use of AI in fashion was summed up by experts in the field to be heralding a major shift at all levels of the supply chain and as about to revolutionize retailing.47

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Style is cultural capital and societal shifts are reflected in the way women style themselves.48 As theaters of fashion, malls provide alluring performances of fashion and style, authoritatively dictating what is fashionable. The women visiting malls such as Plaza Indonesia or Senayan City, or any other high-end mall, are spectators participating in the performance of style in the mise en scène of fashion. Witzig describes it as “a ceaseless recreation of value through the label of the ‘new’ . . . in this way the individual’s agenda of the self is engaged in a bigger project of cultural reinvention through an ongoing discourse about embodiment [of fashion] . . . translated through a chain of meanings through mannequin to dressing room mirror.”49 In her analysis of the “indie” style that has proliferated in UK popular fashion for at least the past couple of decades, Rachel Lifter goes beyond highlighting developments within the “indie” subculture—which is also present in Indonesia and has been discussed by Luvaas50—and reveals how feminine identities are created in the context of multiple discourses on “style.” According to Lifter, “stylish femininity” in contemporary culture “is constituted through notions of both democratization and exclusivity,”51 which, I would contend, the Jakarta high-end malls skillfully manipulate, defining “style” as an elite practice, but also giving it a semblance of accessibility. But there is agency in styling, there is choice. As a practice, styling is not and cannot be owned by the malls, but by the women themselves, despite any guidance provided. There are of course constraints in terms of how the choice to dress is made, as Entwistle already noted nearly twenty years ago,52 however, a fashion statement is made through strategic styling, and it is at that point that women have the choice of turning fashion into a decisive political statement about themselves and their identity, beyond the decorative and the utilitarian side of a consumeristic drive, in ways that essentially contradict and oppose what a shopping mall stands for. Much of this will be reprised in the next chapter, when I look at the wearers of fashion. It is now time to wrap up the discussion on malls by looking at the way they interact with the new kid on the block, e-commerce, and also consider the #jastip phenomenon in the overall context of fashion consumption.

Fashion e-commerce in Indonesia: Battleground for the tech titans Global digitalization is now on such a scale that we are witnessing a marked shift from “corporate-centric” to “crowd-centric” capitalism, as well as the growth of what is popularly known as “sharing” or “access” economies (such as Airbnb and Uber).53 The use of social media has been steadily on the rise in Indonesia.

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Jakarta was declared, “Twitter capital of the world” by Semiocast in 2012, on the basis of the daily use of Twitter made by Jakartans. A great number of Indonesians, especially in urban centers, are also on Facebook and Instagram, and avidly watch YouTube channels.54 An increasingly greater number of brands in Indonesia, as elsewhere, are now able to reach out to potential shoppers through a number of platforms providing information about products, including the use of text messages and WhatsApp, the most widely used messaging app among Indonesians. Shoppers can also, in a greater number of instances, buy online. In Indonesia, since 2011, e-commerce in its m-commerce variance—very important in a country where the majority of people access the internet via their mobile phones rather than computers55—has seen a prodigious increase and has been rewarded with excellent profits. There has been the incredible success story of Go-Jek, the unicorn native to Indonesia,56 a company that offers a series of services, including motorbike rides, and which also has a Go-Pay mobile wallet that can be used to buy anything, from food to beauty treatments at home (or at a salon). There are online marketplaces such as Tokopedia, through which all sorts of goods can be bought, and online malls such as Blibli, which also sells designer clothes. Zalora, with a considerable presence across Southeast Asia specializes in fashion and offers goods from a range of Indonesian and international brands. It is a start-up with some similarities to Farfetch, launched in 2008 by Portuguese entrepreneur José Neves. Farfetch is now one of the most competitive online platforms for fashion and luxury items, not (yet) available in Indonesia, but already on mainland Southeast Asia. There are indeed several more such companies.57 The question that is constantly being asked about e-commerce, globally, is whether it spells the demise of malls. This will not happen in Indonesia any time soon. Though the country has not been lagging behind in terms of embracing the opportunities that e-commerce has afforded, brick and mortar malls are not going to go away, not for a while. The reason for this is that e-commerce in Indonesia has not yet fully matured. To ensure its full growth, the whole country needs to have better digital access and offer greater internet security. At the moment, most internet use is confined to urban and educated higher earners, located in Java and Bali, and the necessary measures to enable smooth online financial transactions remain elusive and highly problematic.58 However, widening internet access is linked with the socio-economic divides of the country. As Pangetsu and Dewi suggest, it is the policy-makers’ responsibility to address the issue. They also claim that among the real obstacles to the growth of digital businesses, there is an endemic lack of skilled engineers and developers, resulting in companies like Go-Jek having to outsource to tech experts in India when affected by software bug problems.59 Bede Moore, an Australian entrepreneur who built and sold Lazada to global Chinese giant Alibaba, and who was the founder of Vela Asia, a fashion

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e-commerce enabler, has vividly described his experience of working in Indonesian e-commerce.60 Despite the accelerated growth that occurred between 2011 and 2016, e-commerce in Indonesia remains beset with problems, and Indonesia is not about to be acknowledged as a tech titan. Unlike China, it never developed an indigenous technology industry, and has to rely largely on Facebook and Google, or Indonesian platforms that basically mimic those. It also has a “fickle” approach to foreign investment that is deleterious and hampers growth. The tax regulatory regime is also “unpredictable.”61 Moore also makes no bones about mentioning another, equally problematic feature of the Indonesian economy. By the end of 2014, “venture capital firms representing many of the leading business families in Indonesia were springing across Jakarta . . . thereby ensuring that the largest pool of capital deployed towards technology in Indonesia was effectively family money. By the end of 2015 these powerful families held a significant stake in almost every large tech company in the country: Rocket Internet, GrabTaxi, Bukalapak, Blibli, KASKUS, Path, DailySocial, HappyFresh, aCommerce, Bridestory, Female Daily, Qraved, Munchery, YesBoss, MBDC Media, Propertyguru, Kudo, Hijup, BoboBobo, Merah Puti and Adskom.”62 GoJek and Tokopedia are not publicly linked with any family, thus Moore could not include them in this list. Moore adds that though it is not unheard of for powerful families, globally, to invest in e-commerce, powerful Indonesian families wield infinitely greater political and economic power than their counterparts elsewhere. In an article published in 2017, The Economist identifies infrastructure as being a major problem. Indonesia has a history of poor investment in infrastructure, which means that “logistics costs are roughly double those of neighboring Malaysia . . . One major problem reported by online retailers in Indonesia is commonly referred to as the ‘last mile,’ where complicated zoning causes margin-eating delays when the delivery driver cannot locate the recipient. Companies are increasingly using real-time tracking of deliveries.”63 The article also reports that 90 percent of the sent packages are from Java, and only around 30 percent of packages go further than Java, which is to say that “more than two-thirds of all parcels are sent to just six out of the country’s 34 provinces.”64 However, it can be predicted that e-commerce, in Indonesia, will continue to grow. The Indonesian government issued in 2016 the Fourteenth Economic Policy Package, proposing a series of measures that included training for an ICTready workforce. It is “a new policy roadmap” as The Economist dubs it, adding that “it bundles together existing policy and new guidelines around taxation, the regulation of payment systems, and various other bureaucratic arrangements. The roadmap is not a binding regulation; its purpose is to set out the central government’s plans to regulate the sector.”65 Of course, there is always that old problem of infrastructure, aptly summed up in another report by The Economist (and widely cited) as “too few roads, berths and systems; too many ships, cars and grasping hands, leading to high costs and lost time: that is

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Indonesia’s infrastructure problem in a nutshell. Jokowi has staked his presidency on solving it.”66 One of the major fashion e-commerce start-ups, Berrybenka, with its twin company Hijabenka, the latter specializing in busana muslim, has been a huge success story, almost rivaling that of Go-Jek in terms of its impact on the fashion industry and its retailing practices.67 Berrybenka was founded in 2011 by Columbia University graduate Jason Lamuda, his wife Claudia Widjaja, and her friend Yenti Elizabeth, at a time when fashion e-commerce was virtually nonexistent in Indonesia. They created a platform for local brands, aiming for shoppers outside Jakarta and major urban centers to gain access to moderately priced fashion. Berrybenka’s target was women from the age of 18 to 35, of middle income, the so-called B segment of the Indonesian fashion market, though it subsequently expanded to include menswear, targeting an equivalent segment. Berrybenka claims for itself the credit of pioneering the online-to-offline (O2O) marketing concept in Indonesia, which, as a concept, seems to suit Indonesians particularly well because of their inclination for an embodied experience of shopping, tactile and intersubjective.68 Berrybenka opened its flagship store in early 2017 at Central Park Mall in Jakarta. This had been preceded by a series of pop-up stores in various cities, covering Indonesia from Medan to Makassar, with the first one of such pop-ups held in 2015 in Bandung and attracting 10,000 visitors over a three-day period.69 For Berrybenka, an omni-channel (multi-channel) strategy, integrating different retailing modes, is the way to go to overcome the problem of uneven internet access away from the major urban centers, as well as lack of uniform banking facilities. The offline store is convenient for customers because they can choose to pay in store and return goods in person. Thus, Berrybenka plans to open even more offline stores in the next few years. The company also has a policy of selling private labels,70 an advantage in the face of competitors, and is currently aiming to become a fashion brand. Unlike other fashion e-commerce that prefers to mix “conventional” fashion with busana muslim, Berrybenka sells busana muslim through Hijabenka, with separate apps. This ensures shoppers can access either of them via their mobile phone—as seen, e-commerce in Indonesia is totally reliant on mobile phones and social media. Knowing its market segment’s utter dependence on social media in their everyday lives, Berrybenka has used Facebook ads71 extensively, which apparently has helped the company to grow considerably within a relatively short period of time and beyond expectations. In 2017, Berrybenka launched Stella, a personal assistant chat service for customers, available through WhatsApp, and it also began to stock “plus size,” which is worth around $21 billion in the US alone.72 There are no statistics as yet as to its worth in Indonesia or indeed the whole of Southeast Asia, but Lamuda believes it could be substantial and is willing to take a calculated risk. Berrybenka is also planning a premium line for

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high-end customers. Investment in Berrybenka has been steadily coming in. In early 2017, Lamuda announced an “eight digit” US dollar new investment from Maj Invest Private Equity, Asia Summit Capital, Softbank-Indosat Fund, and other “undisclosed local investors.”73 However, Berrybenka’s success is not so easily replicated. The configuration of e-commerce in Indonesia is changing dramatically at great speed but it is so dependent on many variables that making any unambiguous forecast is impossible. The country is fast becoming “the next e-commerce battleground,” with Chinese giants JD.com and Alibaba all set to conquer it74—JD is already in Indonesia as JD.id. Another giant, Amazon.com Inc, a global leader in the field of e-commerce, is eagerly looking for growth opportunities outside India and Japan, and Indonesia is an extremely seductive proposition because of its huge population and a mind-boggling number of smartphones, 159 million at the end of 2016, according to recent reports.75 This could yield tantalizing profits. Amazon can already deliver in Indonesia, although there are some restrictions on what can be bought, and some goods sold through Amazon are subject to a hefty import tax. There are important lessons to be learned from Berrybenka and other fashion e-commerce start-ups, mainly, that attempting to sell exclusively online is not the best option, no more than hanging on solely to brick and mortar outlets ignoring digitalization altogether. All Indonesian fashion brands, especially the longestablished ones, realize that they need to win over millennials, which is why they all cultivate a social media presence through Owned Social Media (OSM), at the very least through posting images on Instagram. Intuitively, selling online is perceived as providing freedom from the economic burden of high rents for permanent or long-term counters at malls; for this reason alone younger designers view e-commerce, in any form, as a most attractive proposition, even though they are aware of the inadequacies of infrastructure and of the complexities of payment systems, which is why so many try to maximize the cash-on-delivery option.76 The key word is indeed omni-channel retailing, which far from sounding the death knell of physical outlets, is currently placing renewed value on the flagship store. Flagship stores, integrated with far-reaching and wide-ranging e-commerce and enhanced by AI will transform the shopping experience. The already mentioned Farfetch has launched the “Store of the Future,” which it has named, “an OS (operating system) for retailing,” that is, a modular concept that “aims to dramatically improve retail productivity by capturing invaluable customer data and enhancing human interactions between shoppers and sales associates . . . the initiative is conceived as a platform, meaning the majority of innovation will ultimately come from third-parties, who build new services on top of it.” It is a model based on three key facts: “number one, digital is completely influencing consumer behaviour and the creation of desire; number two, online is

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growing much faster than offline; but three, offline is still—and will be—where the vast majority of transactions take place.”77 Thus, it is a business model which, once fine-tuned, is likely to be adopted widely, in a bid to secure steady sales and a loyal customer base. It gives physical retailing more than just a superficial makeover, it recasts it in contemporary terms and updates it, preserving its allure. How are long-established Indonesian fashion brands coping with these transformations? By going with the flow, adapting, and taking on board as much as possible but with some caution. Ghea Panggabean, for example, has currently scaled down boutique ownership, retaining only one in Colony, Kemang, and continuing to sell directly to customers at the Menteng atelier, which is for bespoke/ high fashion. But the brand is also contemplating introducing online sale options, beyond Instagram, increasing its ready-to-wear production and launching more lines, from resort wear to menswear. Inevitably that means, in the Indonesian context, to be more receptive to government plans to turn Indonesia into a hub of global “modest wear.” Ghea Panggabean is keen to amplify and vary her busana muslim line, currently differing from the main one only by way of styling, on the strength of the favorable reception it has had not only in Indonesia but also in the context of other Southeast Asian countries, e.g. Malaysia and beyond, for example in Turkey. Biyan, on the other hand, while maintaining more traditional sales points, has already begun to sell online, collaborating with JD.id. He launched his Studio 133 ready-to-wear Spring/Summer 2019 collection at the Dharmawangsa, Jakarta, in November 2018, implementing the “see-now-buy-now” policy. As Stephanie Susilo, head of JD.id fashion said, “Now, customers all over Indonesia can find the collection with just a click, along with added benefits such as the ability to pay in instalments over 24 months.”78 Similarly, Saul Studio, who as a brand is only a few years old and is only just beginning to establish itself as a promising Indonesian contemporary fashion label, maintains a virtual shop through the Shopify platform,79 but also sells through The Goods Dept, a multidimensional (omni-channel) retail environment for independent brands developed by the founders of Brightspot Market. Saul Studio also sells, on consignment, through Fashion Link, at Senayan City and at Central Neo Soho, a new Thai department store in Jakarta. As efforts are being made to offer longer term solutions to the lack of infrastructural support that continues to weigh heavily on the Indonesian fashion economy, newer and unconventional strategies are being developed by consumers in an attempt to obviate, from a consumer’s point of view, the perceived risks and unpredictability of online shopping, with a reported 26 percent fraud victims80. They are seeking to reduce the demands made on one’s time by conventional mall and store shopping, and circumvent the physical limitations experienced by shoppers living in more remote areas, away from the larger and better stocked shopping hubs. I am talking about the #jastip service.

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#Jastip-ing all the way to the mall The hashtag by which the word is prefixed means that jastip is a social media driven service, accessible through Instagram and Twitter. It is a personal shopping service in the sense that someone is paid a fee, always in advance of buying, to get a particular item. Jastip providers, as they are known, are currently enterprising netizens who will use their Instagram account—sometimes Pinterest—and fill it with pictures of sales and bargains. They will use the hashtag #jastip (often in combination with other words either to give reassurance e.g. #jastiptrusted or to specify what their jastip specializes in, as in #jastipsephora, which means it is a jastip dealing specifically with the Sephora cosmetic brand) in order to be found in searches. It is always the user that contacts the provider. Some jastip providers do it full-time, as their main occupation. It is an informal service, though there is potential for jastip to become a full-fledged business, run by a company, rather than just an individual.81 The jastip service is also available to buy goods overseas and there is a website, Bis.t.ip.com, which helps to connect users with jastip providers. A jastip service involving a trip overseas can be tricky, however, the main problem being import duty. But it is possible to get around it through a group of friends going overseas and bringing back items not exceeding or only slightly exceeding the allowance for each person, and then paying for the surplus, which will be charged on the user. Even when paying the import tax, it is actually cheaper to use a jastip service than ordering online, though some jastip providers report they have made losses because of miscalculating import duty.82 The attraction of jastip for users is the possibility of getting discounted goods and avail of offline discounts. However, jastip providers know how to make ecommerce work for them and often open accounts with an online platform, for example Shopee, an online store as well as a marketplace. The provider uploads items for sale to their account with the jastip fee already included in the overall price, and then Shopee forwards the item to the buyer through its free shipping service. Mawa Kresna, reporting on jastip for Tirto.id, an internationally certified Indonesian news site,83 gives the following example. Wita, a user, buys Bourgeois Rouge lipstick at a promo price, “buy 1 get 1 free,” through Shopee. It is a jastip transaction. Uci, the jastip provider, has purchased the promo lipstick, and uploaded it to Shopee, sending the item link to Wita, who is a subscriber to Uci’s jastip service. Wita then creates a Shopee account as buyer, pays for the lipsticks through Shopee as per the price asked by Uci, then the lipsticks are sent by Shopee. It is a win-win situation. “As a buyer, Wita spends a little more money [but less than she would if she bought the lipstick without the special offer]. As a jastip provider, Uci benefits because she can reach out to a great number of potential shoppers. As a market place, Shopee receives a boost from the increased number of transactions and the number of customers brought in to the site by jastip intermediaries.”84

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Jastip as such is not illegal but it can be borderline, definitely an informal arrangement and as such totally unregulated. It is unlikely, for example, that jastip providers pay any tax on their earnings.85 Overall, it is regarded as a pretty reliable service. There might be problems relating to possible scams but clearly nothing is ever scam proof (and not just in Indonesia). It is a twenty-first century form of personal shopping assistance and even though it is carried out online, through social media, it is actually focused on shopping at malls rather than online shopping as such. The products most in demand tend to be cosmetics and skincare products. Users are usually after bargains, and jastip providers regularly upload photos of discounted goods on their Instagram account to ensure continuous orders. The other much sought-after item is clothing, especially from Zara, Topshop, and Mango stores, which for many middle and lower middle-class Indonesian consumers represent the height of trendy style. In Indonesia, these brands do not offer click and collect. In the UK, should I ever wish to buy a Zara item, I would look for it online on the Zara website, order it and pay, then go to a Zara store of my choice and collect it, which would also give me the chance to check whether it fits as I could avail of the changing rooms and exchange it there and then, should I change my mind about it or should it not fit. In Indonesia I would walk into a mall, go to a Zara store, see what is available at that store and buy whatever I like on the spot, trying it out if possible, before buying. If I were to provide jastip, I would take pictures of certain items and post them on Instagram with a series of suitable hashtags, and then wait for someone to order the item. The Indonesian Zara website is only available for reference and does not allow customers to buy online. To a jastip provider, the website would only give an idea of what is available during a particular season, but the provider would have to check out Zara stores. Jastip is very useful to anyone who is short of time or does not live near well-stocked outlets. Blog posts have begun to appear, advising on how to set up a jastip professional service and suggesting that jastip is a way for millennials, especially students, “to make a little extra money.”86 Whether the mushrooming of jastip services will continue to go unregulated is a question mark. It seems that at the moment everyone is doing well, as noted by Kresna. Users, providers, shopping malls, brands, online marketplaces, and last but not least, social media platforms.

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6 WEARING CLOTHES, STYLING THE SELF: INDONESIAN WOMEN AND FASHION The mall culture of Indonesia and the e-commerce sites encourage shopping and the “conspicuous consumption” of fashion. Carolyn Mair, drawing on Veblen, who first put forward the theory in 1899, explains “conspicuous consumption” as “spending money on and acquiring luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power and to compete with others.”1 This would aptly describe the practices of the arisan ladies discussed in Chapter five. Though this might be a sub-theme relating to fashion as a status marker and the “social visibility of fashion,”2 I shall not pursue it and will, instead, retrace my steps to take a closer look at the relationship Indonesian women—shoppers and wearers of clothes—have with fashion and style. I have alluded to this relationship in the foregoing chapters at several junctures but here I would like to zoom in on the issues it raises. The aspirational urban wearer envisioned in the discourse of fashion and beauty peddled by the fashion makers, media, and advertising, and the views and mind-set of ordinary Indonesian women, do not necessarily coincide. Women cover and adorn their bodies with the clothes they buy and wear and which, one way or another, reveal their individual psychological relationship to fashion and style and to existing socio-cultural norms and dress codes. But their reaction to the beauty standards upheld by the industry and any style prescription varies from complete acceptance to contestation in a varying degree, allowing them agency in their choice to embrace, reject, or modify them. This leads us to a consideration of how fashion and style, in the Indonesian context, are enmeshed with a performance of femininity, including androgynous femininity, with fashion becoming a technique to harness and/or project the power (or powerlessness) of the female body, as distinctly articulated in any cultural formation.3 Through clothing, the body can be concealed or exposed, 127

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according to socio-cultural norms and personal preference, but body image concerns and notions of an ideal beautiful body, which in Indonesia combine an older “traditional” aesthetic filtered through a contemporary sensibility, dominate the fashion discourse and give rise to a counter-discourse of resistance. In Indonesia, the culturally dominant ideal female form based on a pervasive Javanese archetype was historically posited as elongated and slim with a very small waist and full breasts, a notion of “classical” ancestry,4 borne out by the sculptures of the ancient temples. A flawless and glowing complexion was understood to be an absolute beauty requirement, sung in the Javano-Balinese kakawin and kidung poetry. In the eleventh century Arjunawiwaha (The Marriage of Arjuna), the poet Mpu Kanwa lists the types of female beauty found at court and says, with reference to the noble lady, that she is “known as the beauty of a work of art (atulis) . . . her body is as slender as a stalk; her breasts are full; her waist is tiny; her complexion is of pale gold.” Add to this long, straight and thick black hair, arranged in elaborate coiffures.5 These ideals no longer have currency in this form in contemporary Indonesia— no more than one would expect Renaissance notions of beauty to dominate the European psyche—nevertheless they are subtly echoed in the contemporary aspirational slim body and fair skin touted by media and advertising, and projected through the catwalk, the print and online magazines, through the imagery displayed on billboards in shopping hubs and ubiquitous TV and online ads. Colorism is deep-rooted in Indonesia and there have been several accounts, by a number of Indonesian women, of its insidious psychological effects, but it is not entirely a product of colonialism, even though it was intensified by the rigid societal and racial stratification favored by the Dutch.6 Already in pre-colonial Indonesia, a lighter, glowing complexion was a class marker in a society that was very divided and sharply differentiated between the women who did manual work in the rice fields and those who were more prosperous and led a life of leisure in their comfortable homes, waited upon by housemaids and servants. However, it is important to note that it was not a “white” skin that was praised, only a “pale gold” complexion. At some point, which some researchers identify as coinciding with the soap ads of as late as the 1980s, a significant shift took place and the “glowing, pale gold” became milky white, crystallizing into the pesona barat, “western allure” or “allure of whiteness,” as Vissia Ita Yulianto glosses it.7 On such a premise I will discuss in this chapter models, muses, and celebrities, as well as beauty standards and their impact on everyday women and also their disruption. An aspirational urban wearer is constructed through the arty images appearing in fashion and lifestyle magazines, as well as the images in carefully curated social media feeds, with the collusion of photographers, designers, stylists, and makeup artists, on the bodies and faces of models and model/

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actresses cast in commercial roles.8 However, the rise, globally, of a new breed of model–performer–activist and a new generation of creatives and social media influencer-activists is redefining fashion and style, subverting narratives of objectification, through powerful counter-imagery. Italian fashion curator and academic Maria Luisa Frisa notes that the (female) body in fashion is a body redefined by clothes, which alter the body and realign it with a changing imaginary that every time proposes disparate body typologies, differently envisioned by each designer. She gives some examples: Gianfranco Ferré sees his ideal woman as tall, lean, well proportioned, agile, sleek, and dynamic, with dark hair and full lips; Charles James thought that the female body was intrinsically wrongly shaped, to be improved by his designs; Walter Albini’s pronouncements are precisely articulated, “Slim but with a solid bone structure. With straight, broad shoulders, a longish bust, narrow hips, small breasts. A small head, medium length hair, almost short. Not beautiful but definitely irresistible.”9 It is a reminder that fashion, as a global project, is male-dominated and a channel for the male gaze, and even though the number of female designers is considerable, fashion encourages a predominantly male-oriented aesthetic and way of seeing. My experience of fashion in Indonesia is that here too it reflects a strong male bias, further complexifying it with local values and perspectives, stemming from the specifics of the Indonesian socio-cultural milieu.

Models, muses and celebrities Fashion modeling is now a popular topic in fashion studies, and quite a number of books and research papers have been written on models and the modeling industry, not to mention the countless articles in fashion magazines and other non-specialist publications.10 Documentary films are also available, as for example Chasing Beauty (2013), directed by Brent Huff, and the already mentioned Timeless Beauty (2018), directed by Deyan Parouchev.11 Models are enveloped in mystique, carefully cultivated by some of the models themselves (or their publicists and agents). But there is also a sense of their being utterly disposable and fundamentally irrelevant, in an industry that is constantly demanding new faces and new bodies, and that is in the business of objectifying and sexualizing the young women (and the comparatively fewer men) that work as models.12 Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth Wissinger write that the “fascination with models as popular cultural entities . . . demands a more thorough, scholarly analysis because, despite their apparent triviality, models occupy an interesting and influential place within the social world” (emphasis mine). The qualifier “trivial” in relation to models, reflects the ambivalence that is often felt towards

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them—they are celebrated and envied but all too often vilified, even by wellmeaning individuals, assuming a total lack of intellectual abilities. The sexual exploitation of models is well known, and it has been objected to by several campaigning organizations, but only in more recent years, as previously people were afraid to speak out. British fashion activist and academic Caryn Franklin, for example, fearlessly denounced, over a number of years, the sexual abuse many young models have allegedly suffered at the hands of American photographer Terry Richardson, long before the #MeToo movement began, and received a lot of flak for daring to voice her concerns.13 However, and in a similar manner, the financial exploitation of models tends to be glossed over because all those involved—clients, agents, casting directors, production companies, magazine editors, and so on—do not really encourage an open discussion, and there would be a conflict of interests. It is conventionally accepted that models should do unpaid work “for your portfolio, darling,” which is fine when it is only “testing,” but not so good when the photographs are then used for commercial ends. Fashion editorials are now routinely unpaid—at least this is my experience in London, and I am told it is an internationally widespread trend—the excuse being that there is no budget, but the model will benefit because she has “the opportunity to work with an amazing creative team, you will get exceptional images and so much exposure,” or they are paid less than the minimum wage. Models (or their agency for them) often accept commercial jobs and forego buy-out payments for the prestige value. The high-earning top models with celebrity status (the A-listers) are an exception. Modeling is very much part of the gig economy and it has been so even before the term was coined.14 Far too often models are told that it is an honor for them to be chosen for a job, and that “making a fuss”—asking too many questions about contracts and image usage—will result in them being regarded as “troublemakers.”15 There are plenty of willing girls to choose from, and models are in constant fear of being upstaged or replaced by a newcomer. Not all model agencies are run by people who care about the models and they may have inexperienced bookers—some agencies have been known to rely on interns to save money. Trade union membership is not part of the mind-set of models, or they may be in a country where unions for models simply do not exist.16 It would seem that models of all ages—though admittedly younger models have absolutely no clue about the way the modeling industry works—tacitly consent to this state of affairs, which seems to have become the norm, no matter where they may be located. It is the way things are: #modellife. I have not been able to investigate the financial side of modeling in the Indonesian context. People are extremely reticent about giving details of financial arrangements. I only know about what happens in the UK and Europe simply because I have experienced it myself, having now been in the industry for more

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than twelve years. Generally, one hears of “incidents,” such as delayed or failed payments, and any sort of abuse, only through “model gossip,” often while waiting to be seen at a casting and bumping into some model friend also waiting to be seen for the same job—it is very competitive work. When I was in Indonesia, every time I began to ask about financial details the question would be answered in very general terms or deflected. I was not perceived as an insider, and knowing I was doing research and writing a book would put people on guard. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that the financial exploitation of models goes on in Indonesia too, particularly because modeling as a profession is still not quite established and the girls may not be aware of their rights.17 The modeling industry, globally, is marred by endemic racism and a general lack of inclusivity. It seems set on a specific body type, tall and slim, with a fairly symmetrical face, ideally with a Northern European look. In the West, nonCaucasian models do appear on and off runways and commercials in major fashion centers. There are certainly more than a dozen international token supermodels of color, a few Asian models, and it now seems that non-Caucasian models are being regularly featured in British Vogue, whose editor in chief, Ghanaian-born Edward Enninful, was mandated to produce a more diverse and inclusive fashion coverage. One of his collaborators is Naomi Campbell, one of the first (and most outspoken) global black supermodels, now adding more strings to her bow by being contributing editor of the magazine for which she has been conducting high-profile interviews.18 Given the wide international distribution of British Vogue, its diversity coverage is bound to be globally impactful. Overall, body diversity is still far from being the norm in fashion worldwide. Size continues to matter, even though so-called plus size (curvy) models are becoming increasingly more visible, and (young) age still plays an important role in the modeling industry, despite the presence of a handful of regular older models and a few older celebrities in global campaigns. Inclusivity is absent, the occasional celebratory article affirming the contrary notwithstanding. As Carolyn Mair notes, “the narrow stereotype of beauty determined and promoted by the fashion and media industry is problematic in many senses, not least in that it does not represent the diverse population which consumes its products . . . bodies come in all shapes, sizes, skin tones and abilities, and they adapt across the lifespan to perform ordinary and extraordinary actions.”19 In Asia, body positivity is hardly making an impact on modeling. Beauty standards, shaped by the industry as it has developed in the West, and perceptions of who can or cannot model, in terms of size and age, have gone largely unchallenged and are applied with great zeal by Asian model agents.20 Predictably, compared to the attention that modeling has received in AngloAmerican academic literature, hardly any research has been carried out about models and modeling in Asian countries, let alone Indonesia, apart from an enlightening article by Ashley Mears on modeling in Tokyo based on her personal

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experience of being sent to Japan by her agency in her modeling days; there is also a book by Shefalee Vasudev on Indian fashion which has a chapter on, and several references to, fashion models, drawing on her inside knowledge of the Indian fashion industry as a former fashion editor.21 In Indonesia there is a series of three video films made for the Jakarta-based Visionaire Fashion Film Competition by Harris Syn entitled, The struggles of being a model (2016 to 2018), which gives an insight into the modeling industry. Episodes one and two discuss modeling in contemporary Indonesia, interviewing well-known models such as Laura Muljadi and Paula Verhoeven and model agent Adwin Saputra, founder of Wynn Models, highlighting how difficult it is for Indonesian models to be taken seriously in terms of professional commitment. Modeling is still not regarded as a real job in Indonesia and some people go so far as to believe it is a cover for prostitution. Conventional international body standards for models are, however, reiterated throughout the films, except perhaps for the willingness to deviate from an understanding of model beauty based on fairness of complexion, at least not for editorial and runway models. Episode three goes further, focusing on the bullying a number of these young people have suffered because of their somewhat unusual appearance, e.g. tall and skinny or with a darker complexion and curly hair, and as such the documentary is quite revealing of the crude intolerance of difference that can sometimes be found within Indonesia, where to be an outsider or not to conform to the values held by a particular community may lead to abuse and scorn.22 Modeling in Indonesia reflects a broader, Asian pattern of favoring Caucasian models (and of having local models looking as far as possible as carbon copies of Caucasian ones, barring a few details)—here Mears’ essay on the gaijin (Caucasian) model’s aesthetic labour23 could be tweaked to fit an Indonesian context, except perhaps that Indonesia would be a little more chaotic in terms of how the castings are conducted, the Jakarta traffic would definitely require greater time flexibility. The reasons for wanting Caucasian models are numerous, as Elaine YJ Lee notes, after interviewing a number of Asian brand representatives, mostly from her native South Korea, but also from Japan (and thus corroborating Mears’ autoethnographic insights). Among these reasons there is brand positioning and market competition, the apparently high fees demanded by local celebrity models for campaigns, which puts them off limit, but also the “unspoken rule” that a Caucasian is by and large better looking than an Asian.24 Before 1998 there were no foreign models working in Indonesia, apart from the occasional celebrity model traveling to Bali for pleasure and relaxation who might agree to do a photo shoot—thus, for example supermodel Janice Dickinson agreed to pose for Ghea Panggabean, having met the designer in the 1980s during a trip to Indonesia, and having shown a liking for a couple of kaftans from Ghea’s collections.

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Post-1998 there has been a proliferation of model agencies being set up to deal with Caucasian models, of either sex, arriving in Indonesia on short-term contracts, sent over by their mother-agency, based in Eastern Europe or Brazil, or even Australia. A few models are also sent over from India and Singapore, and some are recruited from South Korea—a fashion editor for a teen magazine told me at JFW16, when I remarked I had spotted some Korean models on the runway, that “Korean girls are slim and fair, taller than Indonesians, and have jet black straight hair. Just what Indonesian girls are after.” The models from overseas tend to be rather young but legally, to work in Indonesia, they have to be over eighteen. The girls are usually not very experienced, sent over to increase the size and quality of their portfolio25—thus they do not command high fees—and they all conform to so-called “international standards,” bearing in mind that there is sometimes some leeway on height. The tendency is to go for girls with a minimum height of 173–5 cm (5ʹ8ʺ–5ʹ9ʺ), and not exceeding 180–2 cm (5ʹ11ʺ–6ʹ), a very slim frame corresponding to an American size 0–4, either blonde or brunette. The local agencies provide them with accommodation, get them the compulsory KITAS (work permit), and also provide them with transportation, all of which has to come out of the model’s fees. Caucasian plus-size or senior models are never brought over by such agencies, although there are signs that the situation might be changing.26 Black foreign models are generally not favored—unless they are male, in which case the dark skin color is regarded as exotic, in keeping with the perception of a black man as a stud.27 A number of Caucasian models have settled in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta, and some are young offspring of “expats” working in Indonesia. When I was in Indonesia in 2015, I wrote a blog post about some of these foreign models, longterm residents in Jakarta.28 Other models tend to be Indonesian, but with a Caucasian parent. Their complexion is rather pale and this is highly sought after. There are agencies now that recruit only Indonesian models, or may prioritize Indonesian models but still represent foreign ones, as there has been a backlash against the “Eastern European girls,” a general term for Caucasian models. Modeling schools are also being set up and model searches seem to have intensified—I have already referred to the 2018 model competition held in conjunction with ID.FW18 and also the one linked with JFW19.29 Though the height standard was maintained in the 2018 modeling competition, at ID.FW18 the unspoken rule about pale complexion was scrapped in an attempt to have greater Indonesian ethnic diversity on the runway. This was indeed a step forward, as some of the models, both boys and girls, were ethnic types that earlier would have been regarded as unsuitable, in that they did not conform to the Javanese, or the fair-skinned ideal favored in earlier decades.30 This constant reference to “international standards” requires some further scrutiny. It is often stipulated that runway models have to be taller than a certain

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height, usually a minimum 5ʹ8ʺ–5ʹ9ʺ (173–5 cm) because apparently being tall helps to showcase the clothes. In Indonesia, the height rule seems to be adhered to with some rigidity. In an interview in 2015, Svida Alisjahbana told me that “international standards” had to be in place at JFW and that it was regrettable that in Indonesia one could not easily find girls topping the six-foot mark like in the States or Australia. The remark struck me as odd, given that in Indonesia the average height for women is 5ʹ2ʺ, according to figures provided by the World Health Organisation.31 The height of the models does not seem to matter so much in photo shoots, so much so that several past winners of the famous Femina beauty pageant have been around 165 cm tall or less, the fairness of their complexion being a far more strict requirement until very recent years. Ironically, the exceptions to the height rule at global level are now so numerous as to make it flexible. Well-known international models such as the British Kate Moss, American-Japanese Devon Aoki, French-born Laetitia Casta, celebrityoffspring-turned-models Georgia May Jagger and Lily-Rose Depp, said to be muse to the late Karl Lagerfeld, are all below 5ʹ7ʺ, let alone the 5ʹ8ʺ–5ʹ9ʺ minimum height of “international standards.”32 Celebrity A-listers, who take on the role of high-profile models and may not be from the modeling world at all, but more broadly, from that of entertainment, are exempt from any height rule, wherever they may be found.33 Despite the rigid adherence to “international standards,” these days even on the Indonesian runway there are some exceptions, as celebrity influencers might be asked to open a fashion show, as indeed Ayla Dimitri, of medium height, has done several times. Given that the majority of Indonesian women are quite petite, the sight of very tall or exceptionally tall girls on the runway can be quite bewildering and most alienating for the women who watch the shows, bound to be assailed by a sense of being insignificant and “too short.”34 It would seem that Indonesian models embody a beauty standard that remains totally unachievable by the majority of Indonesian women. One can diet and lose weight, one can exercise and build muscles, but one can do absolutely nothing about one’s genetic height. Some Indonesian models are well below the age of sixteen—Vebiantri Hananto, winner of ID.FW18 model competition and later signed by JIM Models, an established model agency in Jakarta, was barely fourteen, a school girl.35 Indonesian models do not work much internationally, until now they have seldom been seen outside Indonesia and/or Southeast Asia; unlike Chinese or Korean or even Indian models, there have been no internationally known supermodels from Indonesia. With exceptions, naturally, such as Ayu Gani, winner of “Asia’s Next Top Model cycle 3” (2015), or Ria Juwita in her Paris days, or Okky Asokawati, now a hijaber and a member of the People’s Representative Council, supermodel of the 1980s who modeled for Ungaro and Montana, or Darell Ferhostan, an androgynous model, dubbed as the Indonesia Andreja Pejic´, listed on the books

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of Wynn Model Agency among the male and also the female models, and living in France since 2016, or Kelly Tandiono, originally from Singapore, of ChineseIndonesian descent, a mentor for Asia in “Asia’s Next Top Model cycle 4,” and an athlete too. Drina Ciputra, a model in her late twenties, now also doubling up as a booker and in charge of PR at JIM Models,36 told me that even though she often travels to Singapore, her chances of working there are minimal. I was surprised, as she is one of the tallest Indonesian models, slightly below 5ʹ11ʺ, and she is also extremely slim, but she disabused me of my notion of inter-Asian modeling opportunities by stating that in Singapore clients insist on Caucasian girls and she would be regarded as not sufficiently fair-skinned for an Asian model. There are also models in Indonesia who have been working for decades, and are now regarded as muses rather than just models—by and large, Indonesian models tend to last longer than their Euro-American colleagues, whose modeling career is often over by the time they reach twenty-five, with exceptions of course—“so long as they manage to maintain their looks,” as Drina said, which means banishing all signs of aging, through coloring their hair, perhaps having fillers or “work” done, exercising, and dieting. These muses are women such as the already mentioned Okky Asokawati, tall, slim, very fair-skinned, and very chic, founder of OQ Modelling, a successful modeling school with branches in Jakarta, Bandung, and Surabaya,37 and a former favorite model of Iwan Tirta, Biyan, and Ghea Panggabean. She occasionally walks the runway and diligently curates her Instagram feed, having taken up among her many causes that of representing “Muslim beauty,” in an effort to inspire any wanna-be, not just to model, but also to take a more active participation in politics, without abandoning style. She wrote a book, From Fashion to Politics (2015), which discusses at length her transition and her decisions, and which is meant to encourage women to think for themselves.38 Another “veteran model” is Wiwied Miriam Muljana Subowo, a Javanese princess by birth and a former beauty queen, acclaimed muse to several designers, especially Biyan, most recently appearing in fashion shoots and shows for Ghea Panggabean at home and abroad, as well as being featured in “The Reunion” article of Harper’s Bazaar Indonesia, to which I have already referred. Then there is Selma Abidin, part Croatian, who has appeared on the cover of Femina and various other magazines, and who continues to model at most fashion events in Jakarta, for designers as disparate as Tri Handoko and Anne Avantie, despite having hit the age of forty—she was also one of the models in “The Reunion” piece. The already mentioned Sarita Thaib, of Minang origin, on the cover of Dewi in September 2015, which marked her come back, an older model of the 1980s and an actress too, is also regarded as a muse. There are several more such models and this is not a comprehensive list by any means. I need to mention, among these muses, Christine Hakim, who started off as a

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beauty pageant winner and a model, and went on to become an acclaimed international actress (and a prolific one at that—she also had a role in the Hollywood movie Eat, Pray, Love, 2010, starring alongside Julia Roberts), a film producer and director, and also an activist promoting educational causes.39 As an A-lister, she has had countless magazine covers and has appeared in many editorials, as well as gracing fashion shows. This brings us to a moot point. Who exactly is a muse in twenty-first century Indonesia, or indeed, anywhere else? What is the role of a muse in the social imaginary? Like icon, “muse” is a much overused word and it is bandied around with great nonchalance. A muse denotes people, usually women, who inspire an artist’s creativity (or a designer, if we are talking about fashion). As Parker notes, the concept of muse is derived from the Nine Muses of ancient Greek mythology, who bestowed their gifts to poets and artists and anyone engaged in creative work. The idea of a muse, an inspiring divine feminine power, transitioned to Roman culture and then to Christianity, and it became embodied into a real, living woman, who still retained some transcendental power.40 Move on through the centuries and the concept of a muse endures, with several tweaks, until it enters modern celebrity culture, now embodied by the sirens of the silver screen. Then it reaches contemporary times, although, as Sarah Parker notes, “the words we might use for a muse figure now are more likely to be celebrity, icon or star. In the twenty-first century, we usually attribute this inspiring feminine role to an artist’s lover, model or collaborator, rather than to a goddess or divine power . . . popular culture reveals an enduring fascination with the idea of the muse, with its connotations of female power, sexuality and creativity.”41 For Parker, who is really concerned with women poets, the concept of muse is highly problematic. The muse needs to be reimagined and its gender bias, as well as the hierarchy it engenders, subverted, to enable female creativity. I could not agree more. The term muse is loaded and bound to be controversial, as indeed the 2009 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, entitled, “Model as Muse. Embodying Fashion,” aptly exemplified. The exhibition, curated by Harold Koda, seemed to suggest that only models could be fashion muses. Koda’s exhibition was prescriptive and perhaps reflected a strong personal bias of the chief curator. The models selected had to be, apparently, “iconic beauties,” representing “the evolution and changing face of the feminine ideal” in the period from the post-war years to the 1990s, which saw the meteoric rise of British model Kate Moss, regarded as a phenomenon unto herself, the Supermodel of all supermodels. In the preface to the book/catalog accompanying the exhibition, Koda explains the main criterion that was followed in the curatorial project. The team had “observed that in every decade certain women emerged who seemed to best epitomise a prevailing archetype . . . they represented an aesthetic so compelling as the ensembles they modeled.” But

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to be included in the exhibition they all had to be professional models. The exhibition would not consider any “non-professional beauty” because, he adds “despite the historic tendency toward a personality to represent fashion houses and cosmetic companies it is still the professional editorial model that seems to best embody prevailing ideals not only of fashion but also of feminine beauty.”42 The notion of a “professional beauty” based on editorial models, who by definition are striking rather than beautiful, is rather bizarre. What is being peddled here is a rigidly defined idea of beauty. The exhibition, in fairness, had exquisite photographic images and was in fact a useful visual history of models and modeling from the 1950s to circa 1995, focused exclusively, as can be expected, on the Euro-American context; but it did not delve at all into the muse/creative artist relationship. A reviewer even thought that “many of the models ended up seeming less like muses and more like clotheshorses—with the fashion world just along for the ride.”43 Ten years on, the catalog essays seem to be not only passé but conspicuously eurocentric. Yet it is exhibitions such as this that authoritatively perpetuate stereotypes and reinforce those “international standards” and notions of “professional beauty” that need to be challenged rather than mindlessly circulated.

Fashion as an arena for activism One of the most significant developments in twenty-first century fashion has been the rise of “women who model” as opposed to “models,” and who are also activists and creative artists in their own right, without implying that their modeling performance is not professional, pace Koda. Their modeling is an extension of their activism, they refuse to be objectified and muted. They are role models rather than “professional beauties.” Fashion is enhanced by such women who are able to reinterpret style through their personality and presence. Beauty is being redefined through their difference, by offering other women a way of seeing themselves represented and valorized in their uniqueness rather than beguiled and overwhelmed by a fabricated and unachievable standard of beauty.44 English-Ghanaian Adwoa Aboah, founder of GurlzTalk, through which she attempts to tackle mental illness and depression, while also appearing regularly in campaigns and on the cover of magazines, especially British Vogue; the American Ashley Graham, spokesperson for plus-size whose TED Talk has empowered so many women around the world; Somali-American Halima Aden, one of the first international hijabi models setting out her own rules for modeling clothes in line with her religious identity and who, at 5ʹ5ʺ (165 cm), is again well below “international standards”; Indian Priyanka Chopra, former Miss World, model, actress, philanthropist, and feminist activist; Australian Mahalia Handley,

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of Irish and Maori parentage, model and body positivity activist; Hari Nef, American transgender model and writer—“I love fashion,” says Nef “and I want to change it. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like more control in my own representation”; British Kelly Knox, one of a newer cohort of models with disabilities who are refusing to be marked as lacking; and finally, the exceptional Winnie Harlow, Canadian, who has turned vitiligo into a sign of beauty rather than a skin disease. These are some of the names that immediately come to mind.45 The activist-who-models is also beginning to have some visibility in Indonesia. There are, increasingly, women who model, present, and act, such as IndoFrench Hannah Al Rashid, or who style, make films, and sometimes model, such as Ajeng Dewi Svastiari, articulate and engaged, who with their presence and interventions are beginning to change the rules. They may be joined in this by the influencers, “ordinary” women as we saw in Chapter four, who have empowered themselves and own their beauty and style, in varying degree, even though some of them may have been co-opted by brands or may endorse a certain kind of normativity, such as acceptance of cosmetic surgery to beautify themselves— although it should be pointed out that cosmetic surgery as such can sometimes be used to subvert normativity.46 These models/actresses engaged in activism are first and foremost women who work in and with fashion but not exclusively, they have other interests too and are committed to changing their life and that of other women, for the better, through actively embracing if not feminism as such, certainly a female-centered critique of conventional and normative values. They are inspirational to a younger generation of Indonesian women, who can relate to them and what they stand for, and encourage women to go beyond an obsession with beauty standards, promoting self-acceptance.47 Ajeng Dewi Svastiari’s message about fashion, for example, encourages women to posit themselves and their bodies as works of art, to allow clothes to express their emotions—here Ajeng suggests paying attention to the emotional cues emanating from the garment’s fabric as this enhances the power of self-expression through clothes as our second skin.48 Conversely, Hannah Al Rashid has been very vocal about disrupting what she calls “the Indonesian obsession with pale skin,” about which she even wrote her dissertation, and has tackled issues of body image and body confidence through her down-to-earth and spirited approach—in an article written when she was working as a TV presenter she discussed her strategies to overcome lack of confidence in one’s appearance and one of them was fibbing about one’s weight when asked by her boss to go on a diet!49 The stimulus to these shifts in perceiving fashion as a creative tool and an arena of engaged practice comes from the commitment to an implicitly feminist critique that can be found among Indonesian contemporary female visual and performance artists. Women like Arahmaiani, an internationally recognized multi-

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media artist who speaks out against oppression, fanaticism, and discrimination; or Melati Suryodarmo, also a regular participant in international biennales, an artist trained in Butoh and in Sumarah meditation, which she draws upon to create “durational performances,” and for whom the female body and how it is deployed remains central to her artistic vision. She has also experimented with film and photography, beyond live performance. Ay Toe Christine, on the other hand, is an artist who has a more significant connection with fashion, as she initially worked as a designer in the late 1990s only to branch out, embracing different media such as installation and digital photography, drawing, and dry point, to consolidate her artistic practice. There are many more promising women artists attempting to use their practice to explore gender and wrestling with their female condition.50 They have begun a chain of reactions that is far-reaching, whereby performance and installation art, especially through film and photography, are oozing into fashion, creating synergies, in the manner discussed by Granata and which we have seen in action when I looked at the work of specific designers who are crossing boundaries.51 A good example of this is the fashion film made for Visionaire by Ajeng Dewi Svastiari in collaboration with Joey Christian, about her complex relationship with fashion. The final scenes deploy a kind of grotesque humor, foregrounding food (a large cake), and with it the collapsing of boundaries and the transgression of societal and cultural norms about eating in terms of the gendered disciplined body, in so doing implicitly challenging the “perfect body” of high fashion, hinting at eating disorders, but also at “stuffing oneself,” metaphorically as well as physically.52 “I see myself now as a fashion horror,” Ajeng said in an interview for In hype in 2015, “because being in the fashion industry and entertainment for 8 years makes me wanna ‘puke’ sometimes. To tell you the truth, I am not so high fashion at all. I am a horror . . . That’s why maybe [styling] it’s just a statement from me to mock what fashion is.”53 I have mentioned feminism and feminist strategies but here I ought to use some circumspection. Feminism in the Indonesian context is mired in complexity. As Wulan Dirgantoro writes, in Indonesia, “a feminist, including a feminist artist, is often painted, almost comically, as a militant, angry woman who rejects family values, hates men and/or is a lesbian . . . [feminism’s] main connotation is that of a reviled, ‘unnatural’ political activity that is better avoided. In fact, it seems as if the majority of Indonesian women, including many female artists, abhor the label.”54 Yet, despite the attempts at silencing female protest through private, no longer state-controlled (as was the case during the New Order) censorship, and through a self-imposed self-censorship resulting from fear of becoming a target for prosecution, following the anti-pornography legislation of 2008; and despite a lack of conceptual clarity in the artistic visual discourse (here I would also unhesitatingly add fashion as a design practice aligned with the visual arts), feminism does have a presence in Indonesia. It is a growing political discourse

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“that critically engages with the processes of gendering . . . [and] includes an exploration of sexual difference and subjectivity, but is also directed at social, cultural and economic organization.”55 Women such as Ajeng Dewi Svastiari and Hannah Al Rashid, and several more like them—here I also include those who are being vocal about creating an Indonesian Muslim identity, without rejecting a feminist subjectivity—express this through clothing and styling, engaging in “fashtivism”. Women, in other words, who bring their activism into the world of fashion and entertainment, and succeed in denting oppressively eurocentric and rigid notions of beauty. Through their words, their performance, and their interrogation of dominant values, the exploitative thrust of fashion as an industry is being eroded, with the result that more Indonesian women can begin to feel in charge of their self-identity and how they project themselves to the world, through their appearance, but not exclusively so.

Fashion and the everyday This account of the impact of fashion on Indonesian women would not be complete if I did not mention fashion in everyday life. As a way of rounding off this chapter, I will touch on my experience of fashion and the everyday, gathered primarily in the context of Jakarta and to a lesser extent, Java and Bali, aware that this very topic could be a separate book in itself. Cheryl Buckley and Hazel Clark acknowledge that “we become keenly aware of the paucity of information on the ordinary, especially in comparison to the extraordinary in which fashion is typically located. Designer names, celebrity wearers, sensational performances, and extravagant visual images have prevailed in several accounts. The everyday can remain overlooked and can appear to lack significance.”56 Pointing to the invisibility of everyday fashion and its ordinariness, they propose an account of fashion “embedded and contingent in the practices of people’s everyday lives,” drawing on de Certeau’s understanding of everyday “as a set of practices that although established offer the potential for creativity. In addition to ‘making do’ with this everyday culture people have been ‘making with’ it and thus transforming and inventing by appropriating and redeploying it.”57 Accounts of blogging in Indonesia, such as that by the already mentioned Luvaas, and beyond Indonesia, as in the writings by Minh-ha T.Pham who has discussed Asian bloggers, can be seen as providing a link between the “extraordinary” and the “ordinary” aspects of fashion, as described by Buckley and Clark.58 But they too, because of the trajectory of bloggers and influencers, are not quite fully embedded in that “ordinariness,” which represents the other side of the fashion coin, in Indonesia as elsewhere. During my visits to Indonesia, I remarked on a class divide in the way women dress, as could be expected, and some differentiation between those who live in

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cities and those who live further away from urban centers, though unsurprisingly, such differences tend to be eroded by the ubiquity of social media imagery, which provides a point of reference, especially to millennials. Fashion and lifestyle magazines will sometimes have articles about women who are not celebrities but live an urban middle-class life, or interviews with professional women of today, about their sense of fashion and style, recasting them as vaguely aspirational. These women may open up about their preferences and disclose their sociocultural allegiances, perhaps referring to specific Indonesian designers and to trendy foreign accessory brands. But they also display, unambiguously, their rootedness in the somewhat chaotic everydayness of their urban living.59 These articles and interviews are for general consumption and can be accessed across the country, so they are bound to have an impact on a large number of Indonesian women, through the multiple channels and platforms these magazines rely upon for their circulation, as we saw earlier. Joanne Entwistle writes that “the appeal of dressing and changing one’s clothes and the playfulness of dressing throughout the life course is no longer the preserve of a small elite but an everyday act of creativity by many, men and women, young and old alike.”60 This was really apparent to me when I was in Indonesia and visited malls which, despite their ban on “undesirables,” can be accessed by lower middle-class women and men, provided they observe a certain dress code—no flip flops, no worn out sarongs, and no obvious dirty working clothes suggesting manual occupations. For women, wearing a kain at the mall is totally acceptable if it is part of a thoughtfully put together traditional or semi-traditional attire. Denim, of any quality, and a t-shirt are also fine and many young people wear just that to hang out in malls. Many more, as we saw, make an effort to wear their preferred fashion. A few more girls and women wear, increasingly, a niqab—Kota Kasablanca, which I frequented during my visit in March/April 2018, showed a cross-section of society, with a mix of “conventional” and street fashion and busana muslim, down to the black niqab of obvious Saudi provenance and/or influence. When I visited Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem Warehouse in April 2018, now sadly closed down, but earlier located in Pancoran at the Sarinah department store old warehouse site (hence the name), which was used for the Jakarta Biennale in 2015, the everyday act of creativity that Entwistle talks about was palpable. Sarinah Ekosistem, an indie centre, with an art space—the Ruru gallery—and a recording studio,61 was also a place where people bought “preloved” clothes, jewelry, bags, and shoes, a real treasure trove at rock-bottom prices, where both men and women could get a range of clothes and reimagine newer ways of using them, which in some cases might involve re-stitching them. Clothing alteration in a domestic environment, with a sewing machine, is a practice that has not died out, and whereas some women can do it themselves, in their own homes,62 others may rely on outside services—in Greater Jakarta

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there is now Kostoom, dubbed as the Uber of dressmaking.63 Other spaces that offer the opportunity to swap or buy “preloved” keep on springing up. When I was researching this book in Indonesia, I moved almost exclusively in an environment of “fashion people.” My contact with those who were not professionally involved in fashion was through “mall people watching,” through my hosts and through the several parties I attended. A few such parties were held at embassies and involved a range of professional people of different nationalities, and generally required formal dress, which for many Indonesian women of a certain age still means kain and konde. Other “non-fashion” people were those I met at one of my favorite haunts, the Kemang Dance Center, where I attended ballet classes in 2015.64 It seems to me that a growing number of women in Indonesia, young and not so young, regardless of whether they choose to eschew or embrace busana muslim, are fashioning a style strategy to reimagine and empower themselves, making do and making with, in an effort to overcome outside pressures to expunge their own individuality and difference. This also requires some careful negotiation, as it is bound to generate an as yet unresolved tension with the other tendency at work, which is to conform to the aesthetic values of the specific community to which one belongs. Local brands overall are aware of such shifts and realize they need to develop a different relationship with their customer base, one that takes into account their different positioning. This is all I can say, for now, as an impromptu observation. More research is needed, as the “ordinary” dimension of fashion tends to be overall neglected, and in Indonesia it remains terra incognita, barring a few attempts dealing specifically with busana muslim and the everyday.65

EPILOGUE Gathering up the threads: Gaps and omissions I have taken readers on a journey through fashion in today’s Indonesia, looking at several of its facets, from its making to its presentation, mediation, and consumption. Much more remains to be addressed, but not in this book. It is time for me to pause and point to some of my glaring omissions that I believe could become topics for further writing and research, though not necessarily by me. Overall, I am culpable of having followed the “extraordinary” in the account I have presented so far, despite the brief mention of the impact of fashion on ordinary women and the everyday that concludes the previous chapter. I did so for a reason, namely, so little is known about Indonesian fashion that I felt I really had to start with those facets more conventionally understood as fashion in order to solicit greater interest and engagement. I toyed with the idea of inserting a fullblown chapter that would end my account of contemporary Indonesian fashion by addressing the question of how Indonesian women of all ages and from different social backgrounds feel about fashion and what they tend to wear and why—in other words, how they make do and make with, as per Buckley and Clark’s suggested line of enquiry on fashion and the everyday. For this I would be relying on a range of interviews, for example with women I met at fashion shows as well as on other occasions, outside fashion circles. But I had to capitulate, in the context of this book such a chapter would feel tacked on, whereas it deserves to be an entire book in itself. My brief notes in Chapter six will suffice for now. I wish I could say that this is the only gap in my research, but there are others, as can be expected. For example, I do not talk, when I discuss media, about either cinema or television, even though I would have loved to include them, being fully aware of economic, political, and ideological media convergence. But I realised that I would have been biting off more than I could chew. Cinema and television, especially television, require an in-depth treatment in view of their major role in mediating fashion, beauty, and style to women and men located outside urban centers, in rural Indonesia. It was beyond my abilities to provide this discussion in this book.1 143

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A fashion editor for Dewi magazine commented in 2015 that in Indonesia those who tend to have an impact on the fashion and styling of lower middleclass women and men, are TV celebrities and pop stars “as seen on TV” (as well as through their social media channels), whereas the readership for fashion magazines tends to be made up of the urban upper/middle-classes and fashion professionals. Products other than fashion and cosmetics are advertised by celebrities, or by “real people,” comic actors who look like people next door representing consumers of all ages in utterly stereotypical roles, often caricatured through mannerist comedic acting, which seems to have roots in the type of performance known in Indonesia in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century as Komedie Stamboel.2 As I reported in one of my blog posts from Jakarta, the Dewi editor told me that Indonesia is “not a very visually oriented country. Apart from a few centres like Yogya and Bali, already with a rich and sophisticated tradition of art making, which have taken on and developed the visuality of digital media to a very high standard, the visual sensibilities of the rest of the country are often shaped by the images conveyed through cheap, Chinese imported colour TV sets and the images are in very strong colours.”3 Thus, I wrote in that post, viewers will assume the fashion in Jakarta is garish and will adopt the garishness. TV, in this way, shapes their taste.4 Another omission of which I am acutely aware is a discussion of the making of fashion images, exploring through a number of examples how Indonesian fashion photographers, both male and, increasingly, female, inflect the discourse of beauty, style, and fashion through the images they produce. I fully appreciate that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but again on this occasion I was not able to include Indonesian fashion photography for a number of reasons. Overall, until now Indonesian photography has been discussed in surveys of Southeast Asian photography rather than on its own and often, quite predictably, with the subtext that it is not as sophisticated as photography made elsewhere. As Indonesian fashion photographers have until now tended to work in several genres aside from fashion, they have often been measured up against the several foreign photographers based in Asia, such as the late Luca Invernizzi Tettoni, who made a name for themselves with lavish books on “exotic” Asia. Tettoni in particular photographed Balinese gardens and Balinese people, among others, in a sumptuous style, often, and perhaps unwittingly so—because of the conventions of the travel genre—emphasizing their alterity. These photographic anthologies5 have, however, neglected fashion as such, and therefore are not relevant in the context of an account of fashion photography in Indonesia, which has in fact been developed to a high degree of sophistication, on a par with photography from Western countries. Photographers such as Firman Ichsan have documented Indonesian fashion since the 1980s, and their work in fashion

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photography deserves to be better known, not just for the intrinsic appeal of the images but also for their tremendous archival value. Among the best-known photographers in contemporary Indonesia, there are people such as Davy Linggar, whose photographs are included in the book about Biyan published by Rizzoli in 2015, as noted in Chapter three, and Rio Wibowo, Hakim Satriyo, Nicoline Patricia Malina, Adi Putra, Glenn Prasetya, Diera Bachir, Ryan Tandya, Advan Matthew, Hendra Kusuma, and Mario Ardi.6 I am not including in this list foreign photographers, professional and amateur, who have attempted photographic essays on street fashion, Luvaas among them.7 Digital photography has made it easier for young people in Indonesia to get hold of cameras and many have decided to become professionals, since the introduction of degree courses in photography, such as those at IKJ, my research counterpart in Indonesia. Among the youngest photographers there is Irene Barlian, with whom I have had the pleasure of working, who at present seems to be more interested in reportage and travel photography, rather than fashion; and the promising Alessia Gunawan, trained in London and Switzerland. The list is not at all exhaustive, only indicative. In 2017 the online magazine Jakarta Now! published an interesting interview with Indonesian/Australian sisterly duo Sally Ann and Emily May, in which they highlighted the challenges of working in Indonesia as fashion photographers, a rather new profession. “As an emerging country, we haven‘t established a talent agency system for creative workers yet,” they note.8 It is indeed a problem, there are hardly any photographers’ agents in Indonesia, though there are a good number of galleries where photographers exhibit their work. It means that photographers have to act as their own agents, negotiating fees and copyright, and this has a downside.

Thinking through Indonesian fashion: Overlapping frameworks I began this effort wanting to make sense of fashion in Indonesia, examining its dynamics, aware of the deep-rooted ethnocentrism of fashion studies—with due exceptions—as a discipline and area of research, and of the little attention that “fashion” as opposed to “dress” has received in several studies pertaining to nonWestern countries. Throughout this book, I have indeed been “thinking through Indonesian fashion,”9 in a number of ways and through different frames, some of which were already highlighted in the introductory chapter—my Prologue—when I referred to the theoretical underpinnings of this endeavor, whereas others have been a reference point, at different junctures, but perhaps were not immediately obvious, like a row of invisible stitches that hold the seams together.

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The first one of these frames is the view that we can think of fashion as a series of “heterogeneous actor-networks constituted of human and nonhuman elements,” a “nature-culture hybrid,”10 as suggested by Entwistle, through her reading of Latour. It is mostly through this awareness that I have conceived and structured this book the way I have. Throughout these pages, the account I have given of Indonesian fashion is that of an assemblage of heterogeneous actor-networks, and through my observation of the varied components, I have attempted to trace the different interconnections, in all their complex ramifications. I have alerted the reader to networks of fashion production, fashion mediation, and fashion consumption, whose loci are not static but retain fluidity and are continuously shifting, constantly reconfigured. In so doing, I have unveiled the Indonesian contemporary fashion system as possessing reflective qualities that at times hide, at times magnify the flaws, weaknesses, and contradictions of global fashion as a whole—the inclusion of an account of Anniesa Hasibuan’s global fashion embarrassment unmistakably indicates so. However, throughout the chapters, I have also “thought through Indonesian fashion,” by highlighting the experience of wearing clothes as a second skin on the body, with reference to my own and that of the women I encountered throughout my research and whom I have discussed in these pages. Thus, I was always mindful of a phenomenological framework that allowed me to make sense of the experiences I described. “When we act in the world, we do not act just as bodies, but as clothed bodies, in which our attire becomes an integral part of our corporeal schema, influencing the ways in which we comport ourselves in space.”11 Throughout, I have also been aware of discussions of the “gaze,” as elaborated by Mulvey back in 1975 in relation to film, rooted in Lacanian ideas of the mirror stage and the gaze as objet petit a and subsequently re-elaborated with reference to fashion by Leslie Rabine and, more recently, by Anneke Smelik, who maintains that “the voyeuristic gaze has been internalised in impossible norms for a thin and yet strong and well-formed body.”12 I have at various points hinted at it, in relation to fashion imagery in magazines, in relation to the female body on runways and fashion films, and in my discussion of beauty standards as they are enforced within the Indonesian fashion system. I mentioned at the very start that when I began this book people’s reaction, in the UK, whenever I told them about it, was one of surprise, to the point that I really grew weary of their constant “Why?” A few people, knowledgeable about Indonesia but clearly ignorant of fashion, seemed to be dismissive, proffering comments that there were far less frivolous issues to discuss in relation to Indonesia. Overall, many people seemed to be genuinely confused—Pisani has also noted this sense of discomfort about Indonesia when she refers to it as the “biggest invisible thing on earth.”13

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In Indonesia, on the other hand, I met with distinguished scholars who tried to persuade me I should write a newer history of the kebaya, “which is timeless.” Not contemporary fashion? Well, maybe Iwan Tirta’s haute couture and batik. Unless of course my book was all about busana muslim—and, by the way, did I know that Indonesia had been making “modest wear” for the past decade at the very least, that it had different local Muslim traditions of tying a head cover and it was going to be the hub of global “modest wear” by 2030—some say 2020? Needless to say, I have written something quite different and, I would like to believe, somewhat less predictable. I did so with great gusto. I totally enjoyed writing about the vibrancy and sophistication of Indonesian fashion, past and present, and found pleasure in tracing its contours—here I find myself in complete agreement with Daniel Miller when he avows that engaging with fashion should allow one to experience a way of “luxuriating in the detail: the sensuality of touch, colour and flow. A study of clothing should not be cold; it has to invoke the tactile, emotional, intimate world of feelings.”14 Indeed. A study of clothing, the people who wear them, the way they are made; all this was pleasurable and activated my “intellectual metabolism” as Umberto Eco calls it.15 I have written about the luxury, opulence, and also the waste of Indonesian fashion, and hinted at cultural crossroads and a proliferation of self-generated, as also externally imposed narratives about origins, transitions, and destinations. I have engaged with that slippery concept, beauty, which haunts us all wherever we are located. I regard it as largely culturally and socially constructed, as indeed Wolf has argued,16 and have discussed it within such a frame with regard to how it is articulated in the Indonesian context, even though I would not entirely dismiss Etcoff when she points to a love of beauty that is wired into our biology. Nevertheless, as she also says, “our bodies reflect not only Darwinian forces which impel us to reproduce, but cultural ones, and social ones, and these are most brilliantly displayed in fashion.”17 I have intermingled in my account, my own experience of fashion as an older woman, an activist, a feminist, and a recalcitrant academic, who also models professionally. This self-involvement allowed me to make better sense of the different aspects and inherent qualities of the fashion systems I embodied, the one I encountered working as a model in the UK/European context, and the one I encountered as an academic researcher cum occasional model in Indonesia. It mattered to me that I should feel the effects of my research endeavor with and on my own body, and that I should be articulating the impact of such an experience, and I have done so at different points in my narration. The role of the self and one’s subjectivity are now increasingly being recognized as a significant tool while conducting research, even though there continues to be far greater emphasis on the role of the researcher rather than the researcher’s self. Feminist academic Shulamit Reinharz suggests that “we bring the self to the field and we create the self in the field. The self we create in the field is a product of the norms

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of the social setting and the ways in which the ‘research subjects’ interact with the selves the researcher brings to the field,”18 and goes on to say that “understanding the self in fieldwork releases us from the epistemological tension between unreflective positivism, on one hand, and navel gazing on the other.” She categorizes at least twenty different selves, to ensure the transparency of the ethnographic account. I would not deploy this method in full but certainly throughout my research I made ample use of my blog to give voice to my modelself (or model-persona) in relation to my field research, and in the writing of this book I have indicated my direct involvement at several junctures. Being an older woman who also models sensitized me to issues of ageism within fashion at a global level and when in Indonesia I looked for ways in which, at a local level, the Indonesian fashion system deals with age—and the plethora of stereotypes that shapes the mind-set of many Indonesian women and men. I do not believe I would have particularly reflected on such an issue had it not been for my own lived experience. I am a storyteller and through this book I have told the story of Indonesian fashion, interweaving past and present, and wondering about future possibilities, while shifting my focus on the many actors, human and non-human, that constitute it. Through the account I have presented, highlighting a set of competing biases, directions, and interactions, my hope is to overturn the still widely held belief in the existence of a reproducible Western model and thus of a monolithic conception of fashion, globally applicable. For the reality of fashion, the clothes that different people around the world wear and style on their bodies, their second skin as they experience it, is indeed plural, diverse, and articulated through a number of overlapping and sometimes contending systems. If, at the end of the day, I have managed to capture my readers’ attention and whet their appetite for more, or even inspired them to write their own book in view of their frustration with the faults and omissions they have found in mine, I think I can positively say my goal has been accomplished.

NOTES

Acknowledgments 1

I contributed a biographical piece for the research and storytelling knowledge exchange platform In-Common https://www.ageofnoretirement.org/stories/ alexmodelling and I was also involved in the Age Does Not Matter Festival in 2016 as a speaker in the “Three Conversation Labs” chaired by Caryn Franklin, available as a recording on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwsc6py5DQ&t=1399s.

Prologue 1

Dirty Fashion (2017) and Dirty Fashion Revisited (2018), by Changing Markets Foundation in partnerships with NGO, both reports available at https:// changingmarkets.org/portfolio/dirty-fashion/. The reports highlight that Indonesia is one of the largest producers of viscose fiber supplied to global retailers and highstreet brands, such as H&M and Zara. They present the findings of investigations carried out in 2016 and 2017 into the health hazards of viscose production and the lasting damage its toxicity causes to the local environment, as well as a host of health problems to those involved in the manufacturing process because of contact with the chemicals.

2

Italian journalist Paola Pilati provides an insightful account of the rise of Indonesian fashion and the influence of Indonesian Islamic fashion on mainland China, among the Muslim communities, in a non-specialist article that appeared in D. La Repubblica, the paper’s weekly illustrated magazine aimed at a female readership, on April 16, 2016, 70–74.

3

The case of Anniesa Hasibuan is based on multiple misunderstandings and has ended up being a major embarrassment to the fashion industry, globally. I shall discuss her at some length in Chapter three.

4

Bandana Tewari “The Made in Indonesia opportunity” BoF November 14, 2017 https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/the-made-in-indonesiaopportunity.

5

Anton Hermansyah “Creative economy sector grows 62 percent in five years” The Jakarta Post December 8, 2016 available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/ 2016/12/08/creative-economic-sector-grows-62-percent-in-five-years.html. 149

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6

Pilati “Giacarta Vincente” D.Repubblica, April 16, 2016, 73.

7

I actually began my blog, The Real Does Not Efface Itself—a title inspired by Baudrillard—in 2010, three years before I quit teaching. It can be found at https://alex-therealdoesnoteffaceitself.blogspot.co.uk/. The blog is ongoing, I have decided to keep writing it even though blogging is now falling out of fashion.

8

American writer and activist Ashton Applewhite has very thoughtfully discussed the endurance of ageism as a prejudice in our contemporary society in an entertaining TED Talk, “Let’s end ageism,” April 2017, with more than a million views to date. See the video available at https://www.ted.com/talks/ashton_applewhite_let_s_end_ ageism. It completely resonates with my own take.

9

I modeled for the regular feature “Fashion For All Ages” in December 2012 in the spread about Christmas partywear and again in 2013 in the February, April, and June series, whereas the article I wrote “From Anna Wintour bobs to too-toned arms: secrets of an older fashion model” appeared on July 8, 2015, available at https:// www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jul/08/alex-bruni-now-having-an-older-modelin-a-major-campaign-is-de-rigueur.

10 The Asian fashion shown in London includes mostly Indian and Chinese designers, and British Asian Fashion Week caters exclusively for the British South Asian community. The designers showing their collections at such events are often invited to London from their country of origin. Though events are not mainstream, they might take place at prestigious exhibition venues such as Olympia in West London. Africa Fashion Week in London is a more recent spin-off, further encouraged by the visit to Lagos of British supermodel Naomi Campbell, now also contributing editor of British Vogue. She participated in “Arise Fashion Week 2018,” which prompted her to claim that Condé Nast should launch an African Vogue to put African fashion on the international map. See Leanne Tlhagoane “Op-Ed. It’s time for Vogue Africa” Business of Fashion (BoF) April 14, 2018 available at https:// www.businessoffashion.com/articles/opinion/op-ed-its-time-for-vogue-africa. 11 Tewari’s article appeared in BoF on November 28, 2017 and caused some controversy over the statement about Indian models not being among the tallest or prettiest, see https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/ an-inflection-point-for-indian-models. 12 Mitter 2007, 7. 13 Niessen 2009; 2003, 243–66. 14 In more recent years I revisited this research, writing an essay on the dance reliefs of the Prambanan complex. See Lopez y Royo 2013, 107–11. Dance, especially but not exclusively ballet, is another great passion of mine and I am often found in dance classes, even now, at my ripe old age. 15 An international mother-agency lends its models for a period of time to another agency, usually smaller and local, taking a cut on the model’s earnings. The local agency also takes its cut so the models end up not earning very much. Caucasian girls are in demand in Asia, and many models are sent to China and Japan as well as Indonesia and other Asian countries, as I discuss in Chapter six. Exploitation is also rampant as in the case of 14-year-old Vlada Dzyuba from Russia, who died of exhaustion in November 2017 in China, after collapsing at a fashion show. She was underage and ill, had no medical insurance, and was made to work for long hours, as reported by the Business Insider UK , available at http://uk.businessinsider.com/

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14-year-old-model-dies-in-china-after-a-gruelling-12-hour-fashion-show-2017-10?r= US&IR=T. 16 In April 2013 more than 1,000 people were killed after a Primark clothing factory collapsed in Rana Plaza, Dhaka, Bangladesh. See “Dhaka factory collapse: no compensation without DNA identification” BBC News September 17, 2013 available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24080579. 17 See Kirchherr 2018. 18 The venue of Brightspot changes. It was in Senayan City in 2015. See Dewi magazine, News section, 2013, “Anton Wirjono about Brightspot,” available at https://www.dewimagazine.com/news-art/anton-wirjono-tentang-brightspot. 19 Wissinger corroborates this when she writes in a footnote “in the modelling industry to call a model a ‘woman’ is an insult, implying she is too old for the job.” Older models are called girls by default, even though being old is their raison d’etre. See Wissinger 2016, 298. 20 See http://www.greymodelagency.com/news for a list of campaigns. Grey is also the only British agency featured in the documentary film Timeless Beauty (2018), see note 26. 21 Hunger Magazine, issue 9, AW15 “I was a teenage anarchist,” photographer Trisha Ward, 110–19. 22 I will elaborate further on this notion of “atypical beauty” in Chapter six. Here I wish to signal that the idea of “rebooting fashion’s beauty ideals” is revolutionizing the fashion and advertising world, at all levels, throwing up newer challenges particularly with regard to how “street-cast” models are represented. See Alice Newell-Hanson “Midland, the modeling agency rebooting fashion’s beauty ideals” i-D. Vice Magazine, November 23, 2016 available at https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/neb8db/midlandthe-modeling-agency-rebooting-fashions-beauty-ideals. 23 Hall, 1997. See also The Stuart Hall Project (2013) a documentary film that introduces Hall to younger generations http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/ 51cb7995c5ae4. 24 My talk was on “Contemporary Indonesian Fashion & Changing Concepts of Beauty,” with Musa Widyatmojo as my discussant. See https://indonesiafashionweek.id/ blog/2018/03/learn-more-and-see-how-indonesian-fashion-has-developedin-a-global-context/. For the interview see Kurniawan Ulung “Embracing diverse beauty in changing fashion” The Jakarta Post April 21, 2018 available at http:// www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/04/21/embracing-diverse-beauty-changingfashion.html. 25 Alexandra Sastre has discussed the link between body positivity and “the neoliberal paradigm of bodily compliance,” suggesting that the project needs to be more radically reimagined. See Sastre 2014, 929–43. Body positivity is being challenged as a concept for being just a buzzword and for having been co-opted, in an attempt to return to the political roots of the movement, advocating the use of the term “body neutrality” as an alternative. See Anna Kessel “The rise of the body neutrality movement” The Guardian July 23, 2018 available at https://www.theguardian.com/ lifeandstyle/2018/jul/23/the-rise-of-the-body-neutrality-movement-if-youre-fat-youdont-have-to-hate-yourself. Throughout this book I will, however, continue to use the term “body positivity” because the whole debate in Asia and in Indonesia is only just beginning and the term “body neutrality” has no currency.

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26 Directed by Deyan Parouchev and co-produced by Alien Production (France) and Shen Zhen Artking Culture Communication, China, for an international market, Timeless Beauty focuses on atypical looking individuals, such as older models, with a cast including Yazemeenah Rossi, Tess Holliday, and Xiaoqing Liu. It was premiered in Tallin, Estonia on November 17, 2018. 27 Adeney-Risakotta 2014, 41. 28 For Islamization or Islamification see Platzdasch 2009; Lindsey and Pausacker 2016, 1–16. 29 Gilbert 2013, 11–30. 30 Baudrillard 1983, 33–4. 31 See Jones 2007, 2010; Rahmawati 2016; Schmidt 2017. 32 There have been a number of studies of Muslim fashion and “modest wear,” most notably Lewis and Moor, 2013 and Lewis 2015 but they have not dealt with Indonesian busana muslim. The exhibition Contemporary Muslim Fashions at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, California, September 2018 to January 2019, curated by an international team, does, however, include a number of Indonesian designers, such as Dian Pelangi and Itang Yunasz. See DeYoung Museum, Herbst Exhibition Galleries available at http://deyoung.famsf.org/exhibitions/contemporarymuslim-fashions. See also, on jilbab in Yogyakarta, Bucar 2017, 74–121. 33 See Global Business Guide “Manufacturing. Indonesia Aiming to be the Islamic Fashion Capital by 2020” available at http://www.gbgindonesia.com/en/ manufacturing/article/2016/indonesia_aiming_to_be_the_islamic_fashion_capital_ by_2020_11646.php, 2016. 34 Rinaldo 2013, 195. 35 See Schmidt 2017, 265–79 for a contextualization of the resurgence of veiling in Indonesia in her analysis of Islamic modernities in both Indonesia and Malaysia, and Rahmawati 2016, 25–45 for her discussion of feminism and activism in Indonesia and the emergence of an Islamic femininity. Also, on the issue of Wahhabism, Seise in her 2017 study of what she refers to as “religioscapes” in Muslim Indonesia emphasizes the “diversity and pluriformity” of Indonesian Islam, whereby “transnational Islamic movements that propagate a universal form of Islam and oppose local forms of Islamic understanding and practice have had and will have only limited success in drawing supporters to their cause” Seise 2017, 281. This is indeed applicable to issues of dress, among other things. 36 For this study I have had to leave out men and menswear or my research would have been unmanageable, but I have often asked men in Indonesia to give me their views on fashion and women. Also, designers such as Tri Handoko Joewono have more recently started focusing on menswear, something that is taken into account when discussing individual designers later in the book. 37 Footage from the IPMI Trend Show can be accessed here https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=P9E7kMzwnm0. 38 In my blog, all the entries from September 20, to December 12, 2015 record impressions from my fieldwork, as do also those from March to April 2018. They are entitled “From Jakarta #1” ending with “From Jakarta #12” and “Again from Jakarta #1” up to “Again from Jakarta #3” and can be accessed at https://alex-

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therealdoesnoteffaceitself.blogspot.co.uk/. I wrote sporadically in October/November 2018 and only on my return to the UK. 39 Reformasi (reform) is the period that roughly begins with the toppling of General Suharto’s regime in 1998, after thirty years of what is known as the New Order. Scholarly consensus is that it ended around 2001. The years after that are generally denoted as post-reformasi. Here I use the term somewhat loosely to denote the post-Suharto period. 40 Suryakusuma 2004, 216–23; Boehlke 2008. 41 Fanon 1967, Spivak 1988, Bhabha 1994. In particular, Bhabha’s theorization of mimicry underscores much of the discussion in Chapter one, as Bhabha’s theorizations are drawn upon by some Indonesian commentators whom I cite and who acknowledge their theoretical debt to him. 42 A concept introduced by Bauman to characterize the current phase of modernity, see Bauman 2018. For self-orientalizing see the discussion by Aihwa Ong 1999. 43 Schechner 2003, 32 talks of performing as doing, behaving, and showing. The study of fashion as a subset of performance studies is relatively recent but already some relevant analyses can be signaled, such as Lynch and Mitchell 2007, Patterson 2015, Granata 2016 and, in the African context, Hansen and Madison 2017. 44 See in particular Rancière 2004, Barthes 2006, Baudrillard 1996 and 1998, Foucault 1995, Lefebvre 1968, Lipovetsky 1994, Latour 1991, Bourdieu 2010, Kristeva 1984, and Butler 1993. See also Rocamora and Smelik 2016 for their guide to key theorists in fashion studies. 45 For Bakhtin and his theory of “dialoguicity” upon which Julia Kristeva based her notion of intertextuality see Lesic-Thomas 2005. 46 See, for example, Minh-ha T. Pham 2015, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu 2011, Heryanto 2013. 47 It is not possible to list here the work of these scholars through which they have fostered a more thorough understanding of Indonesian culture. They were all active for decades and extremely prolific. Anderson is referred to in Chapter one; here one should remember his very influential work of 1983, an examination of nationalism and the creation of national communities, as well as his writings on modern Indonesian politics, including his now famous Cornell paper of 1972. Mrázek has also written many important papers and books, here I shall mention in particular his 2002 study of the Netherlands East Indies, which he examines through a focus on technology. Siegel too is a canonical writer from the field of anthropology; one of his best-known texts is the 2005 examination of accusations of witchcraft in East Java under the New Order, discussing the link between witchcraft, power, and modernity. 48 Vickers 2013 (revised second edition); Aspinall 2005; Aspinall and van Klinen 2011; Pepinsky 2018; 2014; Seise 2017; Kersten 2015. 49 See, for example, the explorations of other Asian fashion, such as fashion in India, Korea, China, and Japan, e.g. Niessen et al. 2003; Vasudev 2012; Bent 2014; Sandhu 2015; Kuldova 2016; Jansen and Craik 2016; and discussions of African fashion, e.g. Rabine 2002; Rovine 2015; Jansen 2016. 50 Entwistle 2000, 3. 51 Craik 1993, x; Belfanti 2008, 114. 52 Jansen 2016, 3.

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53 Kaiser 2012, 11; Jansen 2016, 7. Susan Kaiser advocates a constructive dialogue between fashion and cultural studies, because—I summarize—fashion and culture are both social processes and material practices subject to continuous change and continuity, characterized by multidimensionality and intersectionality, rather than oppositions. See Kaiser 2012, 1–13. 54 I borrow the term from Lifter 2013, 176. 55 I have in fact used a number of electronic resources such as websites and online articles not only in Chapter five but throughout the book. This raises some issues of accessibility, as it is often the case that websites are given a facelift and archives may be slimmed down, as indeed happened with The Jakarta Globe at the end of 2018. A way to recover old URLs is through the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) available at https://archive.org/web/. It does not always work but it remains the most reliable tool. 56 See Buckley and Clark 2012, from whom I borrow the idea of considering fashion specifically in relation to the everyday. 57 See Ellis, Adams and Bochner 2011. 58 Kirchherr 2018.

Chapter 1 1

She explains ethnafashion as follows, “the ‘eth’ connotes the graphic quality of the textile tradition, the ‘na’ references nation, and ‘fashion’ places its wearers as cosmopolitan and middle-class.” Boehlke 2008, 122.

2

See Tarlo and Moors 2013, 13–14. “Anti-fashion” is a term known from the 1978 study by Ted Polhemus and Lynn Proctor at the time focused on street style, but it has been broadened to encompass different understandings of anti-fashion as such.

3

Pre-colonial in the case of Indonesia refers to the period before Dutch colonization, which is usually understood to begin with the arrival of the Dutch East India Company in 1602, although formally Indonesia was administered by the Dutch government only from 1800. Before the Company, there was a substantial Portuguese presence—Europeans were interested in trading spices, of which Indonesia was rich, and attempted at various times to monopolize this lucrative trade. From 1811 to 1815, Indonesia was briefly in British hands, with Sir Stamford Raffles in charge—he later wrote a detailed, now classic, History of Java, published in 1817. The terms pre-modern and pre-colonial are often conflated but strictly speaking they do not mean the same thing, as Jawaare notes—the merging of the terms is ultimately to do with the arguable notion that modernity is Western and thus brought about by Western colonialism. See Jawaare 2011, 178. See also Bruno Latour’s rejection of the pre-modern and modern “great division” in his 1991 book.

4

Nordholt 1997, Roces and Edwards 2007, Ikeya 2008, Taylor 1997 and 2007, Van der Meer 2014.

5

For the dance reliefs see Iyer (Lopez y Royo) 1998, for the textiles in sculpture see Totton 2005.

6

Hobsbawn and Ranger 1983 coined the term. I have engaged with the issue of reinvention in my investigations of an archaeology of dance performance, see Lopez y Royo 2007.

NOTES

7

155

Kieven 2013, 55.

8

These are dances from the courts of Central Java, see Brakel-Papenhuijzen 1995.

9

Wiener 2005, 69–95.

10 A famous hoard now in the Museum Nasional, Jakarta, was found near Dieng at Wonosobo in 1903, see Fontein 1991, 206. 11 Raffles collected several such manuscripts, which are now in the British Library. See the catalog by the same name of the traveling exhibition, Golden Letters. Writing Traditions of Indonesia, curated and compiled by Annabel Teh Gallop and Bernard Arps, 1991. 12 Ave et al. 2008, 87. 13 Starting from the end of the fourteenth century, the northern coast of Java became home to largely Muslim communities made up of foreign traders. From the late fifteenth to the early sixteenth century, these traders, among whom were also the Portuguese, began establishing local domains, the most powerful one being Demak, which succeeded in overthrowing the Hindu-Buddhist kingdom of Majapahit proclaiming Islamic rule. It was earlier thought that the traders were either Arab or Indian in origin, however in 1968, the Indonesian historian Slamet Muljana, reconstructed early Javanese Islamic history through a re-examination of key texts from the period, identifying Chinese Muslims as agents of Islam in Indonesia, in Java as well as elsewhere, and recognizing the importance of the fourteenth century East Javanese entrepôt of Gresik, rather than Demak, in the process of Islamization. See Wain 2017, 417. 14 Trisawati Sujanto 2016, 1–29. 15 Trisawati Sujanto 2016, 2. 16 Much has been written on the peranakan version of the kain kebaya, with a kebaya that would often resemble a coat in view of its length (kebaya panjang), and here I shall not dwell on it, except to acknowledge that the history of the nonya kebaya is linked to that of the Indonesian kebaya, especially the Betawi kebaya of the Betawi of Jakarta, the so-called indigenous inhabitants of Jakarta. See Achjadi 2014, Achjadi and Damais 2015, Dhoraisingam 2006, Lee and Chen 2006, Endon 2004, Seri 2002. For the Betawi kebaya see Bisrie 2012. 17 Protschky 2011. 18 Trisawati Sujanto 2016, 3. 19 Van der Meer 2014, 79. 20 Taylor 2012, 71–95. 21 Trisawati Sujanto 2016, 2. 22 Taylor 1983, 136. 23 A member of the Javanese aristocracy, disillusioned with the moral corruption he had witnessed and the cruelty of colonial rule, Pangeran Diponegoro (Prince Diponegoro) led a rebellion against the Dutch, with a war that lasted five years and ended with his defeat and exile to Sulawesi. See Carey 2014. The tragic figure of Prince Diponegoro, hailed as a national hero, has had a wide-ranging and long-lasting impact on Indonesian consciousness. Raden Saleh, the prominent Javanese Romantic painter, schooled in Europe, where he studied for twenty years in the various artistic capitals of the nineteenth century before returning to the Indies,

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painted a large canvas, regarded as his masterpiece, showing the moment of capture of Diponegoro and the dignity of his surrender to the oppressive colonizers. In contemporary times, the dance theater piece Opera Diponegoro choreographed by Sardono W. Kusumo in 1995 and restaged in 2011, famously opens and closes with a view of a large copy of Raden Saleh’s painting, to the music of Mozart’s Requiem, with the painting becoming the focal point of the choreography. Opera Diponegoro was presented at Taman Ismail Marzuki, the celebrated art centre built in the 1960s in the park of Raden Saleh’s large house in Cikini, Jakarta, and has been hailed as a magnificent work, a reflection on the troubled history of Indonesia, conveying a contemporary message of cultural resistance. 24 Van der Meer 2014, 31. 25 Van der Meer 2014, 75. 26 Bhabha 1994, 86. 27 Taylor 2007, 101–7. 28 Steele 1988, 26–7. 29 Taylor 2007, 81. 30 I personally met, in the early 1990s, one such woman, among the first Balinese girls to receive a Dutch education, definitely not available to everyone in pre-war days, as indeed the Dutch, unlike the British, did not regard education of their colonial subjects to be part of their mission civilisatrice. She was the tiny but formidable Ibu Gedong Bagoes Oka, a Balinese intellectual, an educator throughout her life, and a Hindu reformer, follower of Mahatma Gandhi, who spoke impeccable Dutch and English. Ibu Gedong founded a Gandhian Ashram in Candidasa in the 1970s, which is still active. She passed away in 2002. Martin Ramstedt interviewed her in 1999 for the IIAS Newsletter online https://iias.asia/iiasn/23/theme/23T5.html. 31 Luthfi Adam 2014, 8–9. 32 Hoogervorst and Schulte Nordholt 2017, 445. 33 Taylor 1997, 85. 34 Van der Meer 2014, 204. 35 Vickers 2013, 90. 36 Hicks 1997. 37 The spelling Soekarno is still often seen, as this was the way he signed himself, but it is now more common to write Sukarno, even though Jakarta International Airport named after him and Mohammed Hatta, is known as “Soekarno-Hatta.” Sukarno’s descendants may still use the diphthong “oe” in their own names. 38 Vickers 2013, 97. 39 Vickers 2013, 116. 40 Schulte Nordholt 2011, 435. 41 A thorough account and analysis of these complex events is given by Robinson 2018. 42 Vickers 2013, 130. 43 Lindsey 2011, 7. 44 Lindsey 2011, 22.

NOTES

157

45 Lindsey 2011, 14. 46 Kühr 2012, 141. 47 McCabe Elliott 2004, 298. 48 An exhibition of GoTik Swan’s work was held at the Textile Museum, Jakarta, in September 2017, ahead of National Batik Day, which falls on October 2. See Liza Yosephine “Go Tik Swan collection exhibited ahead of Batik National Day” in The Jakarta Post September 23, 2017, available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/ life/2017/09/22/go-tik-swan-collection-exhibited-ahead-of-batik-national-day.html. I would also signal, in view of its visuals and videos, the article “Batik, a cultural dilemma of infatuation and appreciation,” also in The Jakarta Post Lifestyle section November 29, 2016, authored by The Jakarta Post Life Team, available at http:// www.thejakartapost.com/longform/2016/11/29/batik-a-cultural-dilemma-ofinfatuation-and-appreciation.html, which discusses a much more recent revival of batik, listed as a UNESCO Intangible Heritage in 2009, and now inextricably and indelibly linked with Indonesianness. 49 Images of 1950s Indonesian fashion can be seen at http://whatindywear.tumblr.com/ post/84387993511/old-timey-hair. 50 Kühr 2012, 117 and 134. 51 In Jakarta there are still quite a few of these dressmakers, providing alterations as well as custom-made clothing. For example, in Kemang, South Jakarta, there are several such shops. Laxmi Taylors in Kemang Raya specializes in suits, and has been in business since 1949, before the establishment of ready-to-wear. 52 Vickers 2013, 145. 53 Robinson 2018, 3. 54 This extremely violent chapter in Indonesian history continues to be analyzed in great detail, particularly since it remained a taboo subject among Indonesians because of the censorship of Suharto’s New Order and the rewriting of history enforced by the government, until after the demise of President Suharto in 1998. Among more recent studies of the communist purge, there is the already mentioned Robinson 2018. Many Indonesians incarcerated for no reason other than personal revenge are still awaiting an apology and compensation, which has been stalled indefinitely. Prominent intellectuals and artists were silenced, imprisoned, or killed, and the violence against women was unspeakable, as reported by Diyah Larasati in her 2013 study of female dancers in post-genocide Indonesia. The estimate of mass killings in the region of a million was first given by historian Benedict Anderson, expelled from Indonesia in 1972 for his denunciation of the massacre and investigation of the “30 September movement” in a now famous paper known as “The Cornell Paper.” As the Indonesian government would deny entry to (or expel) foreigners who could be critical and speak out, there was for a long time some kind of connivance among Indonesianists—the eminent anthropologist Clifford Geertz, as noted by Ben White, chose to remain silent and gloss over the genocide, see http://rozenbergquarterly. com/professional-blindness-and-missing-the-mark-the-anthropologists-blind-spotsclifford-geertz-on-class-killings-and-communists-in-indonesia/. Writer Eka Kurniawan’s exceptional novel Beauty is a Wound (2002), gives an insight into modern Indonesian history and poignantly deals with the purge through its fictional characters. Also, the documentary by Joshua Oppenheimer, The Act of Killing (2012), now prohibited in Indonesia, where when first shown it was also heavily

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censored, should be mentioned. It is first and foremost an account of the Indonesian culture of gangsterism linked with the New Order, and still thriving. See Bradshaw, June 5, 2017, “Joshua Oppenheimer on the Act of Killing,” http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/interviews/build-mygallows-high-joshua-oppenheimer-act-killing. 55 Vickers 2013, 148. 56 Pisani 2014, 26 and 31. 57 Corruption has long plagued Indonesia, rooted as it is in centuries of Javanese feudalism. The Order Lama was not immune to it—the short story Corruption (1954) by Pramoedya deftly describes the moral degradation of a petty officer entangled in a culture of bribery. Under the New Order, corruption led to the acquisition of great wealth by a few through nepotism, President Suharto’s family in particular. Corruption has not been eradicated, despite the fight against corruption officially instituted through a series of anti-corruption policies since 1998. 58 Pisani 2014, 33. I should add here that I too, like Pisani, encountered Taman Mini at the end of the 1980s, in 1989 in fact, but a chance meeting at Taman Mini with a young dancer doing an impromptu improvization led me to Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM), also in Jakarta, which since the late 1960s has been a hub of artistic modernity. There I discovered a dissident world of modern/contemporary dance, with artists such as Sardono W. Kusumo and Gusmiati Suid who took it upon themselves to articulate a powerful social and political critique of contemporary Indonesia through their modernist choreographies. See Minarti 2012. 59 Boehlke 2008, 58–9. 60 At ID.FW 2018 Anne Avantie, kain kebaya designer par excellence, celebrated thirty-eight years in fashion and caused a stir by inviting Sukmawati Soekarnoputri, third daughter of former President Sukarno, to read a poem written by her in the late 1990s and entitled “Mother Indonesia,” in which the Mother is described as wearing kain kebaya and konde. The poem has a line that declares the kain kebaya-wearing Mother as more beautiful than one who wears the veil. Many regarded the poem to be offensive, comparable to the offense caused by the alleged blasphemy of Ahok, former Jakarta Governor, for which he was convicted in 2017. Soekarnoputri was forced to make a public apology. See BBC Indonesia April 4, 2018 http://www.bbc. com/indonesia/trensosial-43626623. 61 Suryakusuma, 2004, 218–19. 62 Boehlke 2008, 63. 63 The number of books and articles written about Iwan Tirta is considerable, and it would be too long a list to mention them all. Tirta himself has authored a few books and also articles about batik and his own production, foremost among them his 1996 encyclopedic account of batik. Two doctoral theses in English have, in the past decade, dealt with Tirta and his legacy: Boehlke 2008 and Kühr 2012. 64 Kühr 2012, 5. 65 Tirta 1996, 158. 66 Boehlke 2008, 89. 67 Boehlke 2008, 90–1. 68 Boehlke 2008, 94.

NOTES

159

69 Kühr 2012, 156. 70 Kûhr 2012, 167. Wayang is the shadow theater of Indonesia, especially Java and Bali, whereas gamelan refers to the musical ensemble. 71 Many society girls modeled in shows or for photo shoots in Femina magazine, which was first published in 1972. Julia Suryakusuma, tall and with a striking presence, occasionally modeled for Iwan Tirta in those years, as he was known to her family, and the elegant and slender Poppy Dharsono, who went on to become a designer and later President of the APPMI designer association and of ID.FW, often appeared as a model in Femina throughout the 1970s. 72 Boehlke 2008, 99. 73 Boehlke 2008, 101. Prajudi also made menswear. 74 Boehlke 2008, 103. 75 As quoted in Boehlke 2008, 94. 76 Boehlke 2008, 126. 77 Ghea Panggabean, pers. comm. March 2018. 78 As quoted in Boehlke 2008, 129. 79 Boehlke 2008, 130. 80 Dini S. Djalal, The Jakarta Post February 5, 1995, as quoted in Boehlke 2008, 131, thought that the use of a Balinese destar (head cover) on a jilbab was in bad taste. It is also noteworthy that busana muslim as a rule avoids the use of batik, preferring ikat and pelangi. 81 Dini S. Djalal, The Jakarta Post December 8, 1995, as quoted in Boehlke 2008, 132. 82 Boehlke 2008, 135–6. 83 Vickers 2013, 212. 84 Lee 2016. 85 See for example Aspinall 2005 and 2009, Pepinsky 2018, Kersten 2015, Hoesterey 2015. Together with Mietzner and Tomsa (2015), Aspinall has examined, in particular, the Yudhyono years, the decade from 2004 to 2014, dubbed by him as “the decade of stability and stagnation.” It was under President Yudhyono, who defeated in the 2004 presidential elections Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Sukarno and a formidable opponent of Suharto in the late 1990s, that the draconian antipornography bill of 2006 was passed, ratified in 2008 and nowadays often invoked to suppress LGBT rights in Indonesia. It was also in the second year of the Yudhyono presidency (2005) that the controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammad were published, resulting in large-scale demonstrations in the Muslim world, including Indonesia. On that occasion, Yudhyono showed a calm and collected approach, inviting Muslims to be forgiving. 86 Lindsey 2017, 341–61. 87 Vickers 2013, 122–4. 88 There have been several terrorist attacks in Indonesia, starting with the Bali bombing of 2005, and most recently with the 2018 suicide bombers in Surabaya, which involved women and children as bombers. There is a link between ISIS (Daesh) and Indonesian extremist groups. The deployment of children as suicide bombers in 2018 shocked the world, and almost all Indonesians are keen to dissociate

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themselves from such acts. However, as Sidney Jones, Director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, Jakarta, writes “The more that conservative hard-liners reject Christians as equal citizens under the law, the more, perhaps, terrorists will see churches as appropriate targets. Terrorism cannot be disassociated from its political environment.” See Sidney Jones, “How ISIS has changed terrorism in Indonesia,” The New York Times, May 22, 2018, available at https://www.nytimes. com/2018/05/22/opinion/isis-terrorism-indonesia-women.html. 89 Timothy Lindsey May 4, 2018, “Post-reformasi Indonesia. The age of uncertainty,” available at http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/post-reformasi-indonesiathe-age-of-uncertainty/ 90 Tapsell 2012. 91 Syamsidar Isa, pers. comm. November 2018. 92 BEKRAF (Badan Ekonomi Kreatif Indonesia) has forecast that Indonesia will become the Fashion Mecca of the Muslim World by 2020. CNBC Indonesia February 27, 2018 https://www.cnbcindonesia.com/lifestyle/20180227122606-33-5582/bekrafindonesia-jadi-pusat-mode-busana-muslim-dunia-di-2020 but Indonesian fashion continues to be diverse, as will be seen in Chapter three. Many Indonesian designers seem to be adding a busana muslim line to existing “conventional fashion” without discontinuing “conventional fashion” altogether, though a few, such as Itang Yunasz, have done so, a decision that Yunasz in particular took in 2005. See Puput Tripeni Juniman, “Itang Yunasz designer decade 4,” CNN Indonesia, June 13, 2018, available at https://www.cnnindonesia.com/gaya-hidup/ 20180611155406-277-305280/itang-yunasz-kiprah-desainer-4-dekade (in Bahasa).

Chapter 2 1

Boehlke 2008, 135 gives a short history of the previous incarnations of the current fashion weeks, and we see that the most active proponents of a fashion week in Indonesia in the late New Order were Poppy Dharsono and also Pia Alisjahbana, mother of Svida, the current Chair of JFW.

2

Fashion weeks were originally conceived as trade shows but they have evolved, globally, into media circuses. The ones that currently take place in Jakarta biannually tend to be major, rather lavish, sponsored affairs, as much as anywhere else. For an account of the phenomenon of the fashion week in the late twentieth century, see Breward and Gilbert 2006, Entwistle and Rocamora 2006, Skov 2006, and Williams et al. 2014.

3

See Prodita Sabarini, “First Jakarta fashion week combines modern and traditional cultures,” The Jakarta Post, August 24, 2008 for a comment on the first JFW, available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/08/24/first-jakarta-fashionweek-combines-modern-traditional-cultures.html.

4

For the growing importance of street style, see Hadley Freeman, “When did street style become more important than the catwalk?” The Guardian, September 26, 2016, available at https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/sep/26/fashion-weekstreet-style-catwalk-brangelina. Also see Luvaas 2016 for a recent ethnography of street style, through a study of street style blogging, especially in Indonesia. Street

NOTES

161

style in Jakarta has been covered by a series of online articles with photographs, e.g. Michelle Persad, “Indonesian street style,” Huffington Post, May 18, 2016, available at https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/indonesian-street-style_us_573b5a91e4b 0ef86171c2e10. 5

It is quite normal to borrow clothes from designers. This is what many people, who want to be photographed for whatever reason, will do. I arrived late for the formal opening ceremony of JFW16, sneaking in for the designers’ parade, as I was not yet used to the maddening Jakarta traffic and miscalculated distances. I realized with dismay I was severely underdressed, what I had brought from London was not good enough. Tri Handoko Joewono had lent me some outfits but I had not collected them on time. I wore them for the following shows—he even tagged me on Instagram, which certainly helped to boost my reputation. Having learnt my lesson at JFW16, for ID.FW18 I borrowed clothes from Phannatiq, a London-based ethical brand for whom I have often modeled.

6

At ID.FW18 it was possible to buy tickets but this meant viewing the shows from above. JFW usually takes place in a tent with space at a premium, thus seats are often unavailable, not even at the far back.

7

I got the cheapest I could find only to repent almost immediately because it failed me, wiping out my precious contacts. However, this gave me a chance to visit the huge mobile phones mall ITC Roxy Mas in West Jakarta, which was definitely an experience as here one finds absolutely everything (including stolen phones) and faulty phones can be very skillfully taken apart and put together again. I got my contacts back on a USB flash drive.

8

Most of the time I managed to sit front row as there was always someone for whom a seat had been reserved who did not turn up. I can only reiterate I am really grateful to Svida Alisjahbana for taking me on trust and granting me a press pass for JFW16, it was entirely at her discretion and it made all the difference. I am also equally grateful to Poppy Dharsono for giving me VIP invites to all the shows in March 2018, when I returned to Jakarta to attend ID.FW, only on this occasion I was able to contribute actively to ID.FW18 by giving a talk as I was in the final stages of my research.

9

The issue of press passes is actually quite interesting and it provides food for thought. While in the UK I reckoned it would be a good idea to attend LFW18 to compare notes before my visit to ID.FW18 in Jakarta. I requested a press pass from the British Fashion Council (BFC) to allow me to attend most shows in February 2018 and provided various proofs of my status, even producing a couple of letters of introduction guaranteeing I was a bona fide fashion writer. BFC refused to give me a press pass, despite the book contract. They insisted that writing a book about Indonesian fashion was not the same as being a fashion journalist from “recognised media” and since I was not a buyer either I could not be allowed in. I was nevertheless able to attend the London Fashion Week Festival 2018 as a consumer, paying a rather hefty fee for the runway shows, which were over-curated and over-simplified for mass attendance. I wrote about this in my blog in a post entitled, “Fashion trends for 2018 – Where are the older women?” See https://alex-therealdoesnoteffaceitself. blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/fashion-trends-for-2018-where-are-older.html.

10 There are other fashion weeks outside Jakarta, most notably in Bali, as I note elsewhere in this chapter. However, there is no question that Jakarta is the centre of fashion in Indonesia, aspiring to be recognized as an international Asian fashion capital, and that all the main fashion events take place in Jakarta. Designers based

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outside Jakarta travel to the capital and also try to be represented by boutiques in the capital. 11 Evans 2003, 67–8. 12 There is no Vogue in Indonesia as no guarantee on the profitability of a franchise could be given to Condé Nast. 13 Every year there seems to be a new competition, some of them continue, others do not run after the first year. Style At Work for example was introduced in 2013, collaborating with the Bellini brand and was about designing for commercial uniforms. However, it did not run in subsequent years. The Fashion Stylist ran in 2012 and it was aimed at bloggers, using products from Matahari department store. A model search was introduced in 2018 and this is meant to be annual. 14 Established in 1953 as a prize for designers from all over the world who intend working with Merino wool from Australia, the Woolmark also boasts an international network of retail partners who can then give tangible support to winners. 15 There are considerable fees to be paid to be hosted by either Fashion Scout or Oxford Fashion House, but the designers are encouraged to seek sponsorship. It should also be noted that Fashion Scout is a nominating body for the Woolmark Prize. There is of course no guarantee that the designers thus showcased will be able to establish an ongoing relationship with store buyers. 16 The True Cost (2015) produced by Lucy Siegle, Livia Giuggioli Firth, an ecological and sustainable fashion campaigner (also known for being married to British film star Colin Firth), and Michael Ross, directed by Andrew Morgan, is a denunciation of fast fashion following the horrific Rana Plaza fire in Bangladesh see https://truecostmovie. com/. 17 I modeled for one of Fashion Link’s emerging brands, Saul, founded by Debora Mettu. I did a look book in 2015 and again in 2018. When I met Debora in 2018, she was in the process of applying for Rising Fashion in Singapore in summer 2018, with BEKRAF sponsorship, and she was also trying to register for London Fashion Week 2019 Showroom. Debora is passionate about embracing diversity, which is why she asked me to model her designs, meant “for women of all ages.” 18 See Thomas 2018, which re-examines the fundamental ethics of fashion as a global industry. For the Indonesian fires, see the article “Exploring Indonesia’s long and complicated history of forest fires” by Chamorro et al. 2017, available at http://www. wri.org/blog/2017/02/exploring-indonesias-long-and-complicated-history-forest-fires. 19 Most fashion schools and institutions in Jakarta are foreign in origin, though run locally by local staff. ESMOD is French, whereas La Salle is Canadian, and Binus Northumbria is linked with the University of Newcastle, UK. The Italian Istituto Marangoni does not yet have a school but it has a local representative to recruit students. 20 In 2017, Indonesia Modest Wear Fashion Week was launched at the Jakarta Convention Center with the support of the Tourism Ministry, see “Jakarta to host Indonesia Modest Fashion Week 2017,” The Jakarta Post, October 10, 2017, available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/travel/2017/10/10/ jakarta-to-host-indonesia-modest-fashion-week-2017-.html. 21 Svida Alisjahbana, The Jakarta Post, October 22, 2016, “Curation winning formula in fashion” http://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2016/10/22/curation-is-winningformula-in-fashion.html.

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163

22 “Something for the Spring Racing? Jakarta Fashion Week offers a glimpse of some VERY bold headwear trends,” Daily Mail Australia online, October 25, 2017, available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5014465/Jakarta-FashionWeek-showcases-headwear-trends-new-season.html. 23 It is a rotating position. Ali Charisma was meant to lead until 2020 but left following some disagreements and Poppy Dharsono took over until 2019. When I met Poppy in 2015, the Chair of APPMI was Taruna K. Kusmayadi and he was completing his fifth year. I should clarify here that Poppy Dharsono is not connected to designer Harry Dharsono, also a known name in the Indonesian fashion firmament of the 1980s and 1990s. I have not had an opportunity to meet him. 24 Poppy Dharsono, IFW18 brochure, Greetings from the President of IFW, 11. 25 ID.FW18 Wirabudi, 33; Anonymous, 15; Anonymous, 76. 26 Writing for the Jakarta Globe in May 2017, Yohannes Nugroho reflects on the ambiguity of identity politics in Indonesia, saying that “while the establishment of an Islamic state or khilafah is almost certainly inconceivable for the foreseeable future, it does not mean that the march towards a more ‘Islamic’ legislation program is off the menu, especially in the areas of public morality. Yet in a nod to burgeoning Muslim identity politics, it is inevitable that pluralism and minority rights will be given a backseat.” It will be interesting to see how this will be played out in terms of “outward appearance,” in other words, fashion. Nugroho’s article is available at https://web.archive.org/web/20170515070131/http://www.jakartaglobe. beritasatu.com/opinion/johannes-nugroho-identity-politics-indonesia-remainsambiguous/. 27 Firman Ichsan is one of the best-known photographers in Indonesia, specializing in fashion and portraiture, active since the 1970s. He was briefly married to Poppy Dharsono in her modeling days, and then, also briefly, to Okky Asokawati, former beauty pageant winner and acclaimed model who went on to become a politician and a hijaber. He continues to be active as a photographer and is often called upon to judge model competitions. Ichsan lectures in photography at IKJ and is also a talented painter. His work has been featured in a number of books, most recently Wubin 2016. 28 Tajudin and Damais 2018, 17. The book, of forty-five pages altogether, is a mini version of some of the lavishly illustrated volumes brought out by several international publishers about specific designers and brands, increasingly covering non-European designers. Biyan is one of the first Indonesian designers to be the subject of one of such books, published by Rizzoli in 2015, carrying an interview by British fashion writer Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni and beautiful photographs by Stefan Khoo and Davy Linggar, edited by Marc Ascoli. Poppy Dharsono availed of the editorship of Adji Damais, a well-known scholar of Indonesian art, the writing of Qaris Tajudin, and the translation skills of Henny Rolan. 29 Bianca Cimiotta Lami from Koefia has been visiting Indonesia every year since ID.FW began its collaboration with the Accademia in 2013, and has been on the judges panel of the competition. She thought that Koefia’s emphasis on couture fully complemented the textile heritage of Indonesia and allowed for a sensitive handling. 30 Chrisman-Campbell 2016, “Is this the end for fashion week?” The Atlantic Daily, February 11, 2016, available at https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/

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archive/2016/02/the-end-of-the-runway/461862/. However, there are moves to rethink the Fashion Week as reported by BoF in February 2017, “Rethinking and Rewriting Fashion Weeks,” available at https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/ voices-video/video-rethinking-and-rewiring-fashion-weeks. 31 “The spectacle is capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image,” Debord 1967, 34. 32 See https://live.jingjiribao.cn/jjrb/info.html?id=15221976194222&from=singlemessa ge. 33 His full name is Biyan Wanaatmadja but he is known as Biyan, also the name of the brand. It is quite normal for Indonesians to have just one name, though many have adopted the European model of a given name followed by a family name. 34 Slow fashion is a global movement within fashion in response to “fast fashion.” It is, in other words, an attempt at moving away from seasonal fashion, paying attention to issues of sustainability and ethically sourced materials. See Minney, 2016. It is also happening in Indonesia but perhaps more slowly than elsewhere. The Goethe Institute in Jakarta in 2017 had a series of events in response to the Hamburg exhibition, “Fast Fashion – The Dark Side of Fashion,” such as the Slow Fashion Lab curated by Aprina Murwanti, of which Auguste Soesastro was part, and other interconnected events, see https://www.goethe.de/ins/id/en/kul/pkt/icu/sla.html. 35 See Digital Fashion Week, https://digitalfashionweek.com/about, also Elena Bara, “Digital Fashion Week Jakarta,” in Vogue Italia, March 19, 2018, available at http://www.vogue.it/moda/news/2018/03/19/digital-fashion-week-jakarta-sfilateindonesia/ (in Italian). 36 Fashion Nation, twelfth edition, from April 11 to 22, 2018 featured work by Tri Handoko, Priyo Oktaviano, and Mel Ahyar on the opening night, followed by shows, among which was Auguste Soesastro’s new ready-to-wear line Wastu on April 13 and a handful of Fashion Link designers, including Saul, on April 19. 37 Boehlke 2008, 129–30. 38 I have been asked several times how I ended up being part of such a prestigious show and why I was wearing Tri Handoko’s clothes at all the main fashion events in the Jakarta fashion calendar of October to December 2015, barring the JFW opening ceremony. It just happened. I met Tri Handoko to interview him at a café in Kemang, where we both lived, just a few days before JFW16, and he invited me to go and visit his showroom, which was within walking distance. We got on very well during the meeting, discovering a common thread through dance performance. We talked about many different issues and I admired his take on things, though I tried to be as neutral as possible while asking questions and listening to the answers. When we got to the showroom, I loved the clothes so much I wanted to try them on. I told him I was anxious about what I should wear at JFW. There and then Tri Handoko offered me to borrow his clothes, an offer which I accepted at once, though unfortunately I was not able to pick them up in time for the JFW16 opening ceremony. Later, he asked me how I felt about appearing in the Trend Show. I was very honored to be asked and readily agreed. I also did a photo shoot for Tri Handoko after the show, an experience I really treasure because I was able to work with the very talented androgynous model Darell Ferhostan, and a very experienced photographer, Hakim Satriyo.

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39 This and the earlier quote are from Priherdityo, CNN Indonesia, “IPMI designers ‘Hallucinations’ in the 2016 Trend Show,” November 19, 2015, available at https:// www.cnnindonesia.com/gaya-hidup/20151119123824-277-92676/halusinasidesainer-ipmi-di-trend-show-2016. 40 It was a message that certainly resonated with many in the audience, see the review in the blog Lucedale, https://www.lucedale.co/lifestyle/2015/12/4/mind-game-trihandoko-for-ipmi-trend-show-2016. How did I feel about being involved? It was a first in many ways. I might have been identified with a mother, which after all I am, but I had a chance to wear great clothes and I did not feel my presence was tokenistic, which is more than I have ever experienced at other modeling events outside Indonesia. 41 Winestein 2013, 204. 42 The distinction between these fashion categories is being eroded by the fact that most production these days is aimed at ready-to-wear, with fewer clothes made bespoke. See Waddell 2013 and Rivière 2013. In Indonesia there is a lot more bespoke fashion than elsewhere and there is also an attempt, within Asia, at creating an Asian Couture through the Asian Couture Federation, see https://www. asiancouturefederation.com. 43 The literature on this topic is too vast to be reviewed here. I would recommend as food for thought the now classic work by Joseph Beuys, edited with essays by Volker Harlan, 2012 in which he expounds his influential and highly subversive concept of what constitutes art. 44 Geczy and Karaminas 2012, 9–10. 45 Thus, for example, Faustine Steinmetz presented her AW16 collection in London at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) as an exhibition with audio-guides, with models trapped in boxes and encouraging the viewer to look at garments as art pieces and reflect on what separated fashion and art, see Illingworth for Hunger, March 1, 2016, “How presentations are replacing runway and subverting the fashion system,” available at https://web.archive.org/web/20160314180643/https://www. hungertv.com/feature/how-presentations-are-replacing-runways-and-subverting-thefashion-system/. I too have participated in one of such experimental installations at the London College of Fashion BA 2015 fashion presentation by Sam Keller. I was, on that occasion, locked in a cage wearing a black cape, see Emma Hull for Shift, “Interview with Alex B,” June 10, 2015, available at https://www.shiftlondon.org/ fashion/interview-with-alex-b/. 46 Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel presented installations, rather than runway shows, at the Grand Palais, Paris, for a number of seasons, as part of Paris Fashion Week, although in 2017 he managed to anger environmentalists by recklessly cutting oaks and poplar trees to create garden scenery, see https:// www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/mar/07/chanels-enchanted-forest-showangers-environmentalists. 47 Novia D. Rulista, The Jakarta Post, November 28, 2015, “Eko Nugroho X Major Minor: When art meets fashion,” available at http://salihara.org/programs/ visual-arts/publications/coverage/eko-nugroho-x-major-minor-when-art-meetsfashion. 48 Hatley 2015, 1.

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Chapter 3 1

Vickers 2012, 52.

2

Apart from the extended interview with Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni in 2015, there is an interview with Biyan by Meimei Song for Hong Kong Tatler, December 10, 2010, in which he says he would rather let his work do the talking on his behalf. It is available at https://hk.asiatatler.com/style/biyan-wanaatmadja-an-interview-withindonesia-rsquo-s-best.

3

See Jansen 2016, 13, for her take on “modest wear” in Morocco. Milo aka Emilio Migliavacca has been active in Bali since 1973. His label, Naga, later renamed Milo’s, started as an import-export business and he began merging batik with European designs and fabrics. The brand’s website gives a fairly detailed history of Milo’s batik, with photos illustrating the transformation of his designs over the decades as also the adaptations to busana muslim. See http://milos-bali.com/.

4

Janna Soekasah Joesoef and Amanda Soekasah, pers.comm. March 2018.

5

Luvaas 2013a, 203–27.

6

Luvaas 2013a, 208.

7

Here, as in the rest of this section, I am quoting from my interviews with Ghea in 2015 and also in 2018.

8

I shall pick up the issue of cosmopolitanism at a later juncture, as this seems to be a thread running through contemporary Indonesian fashion and a trait exhibited by several Indonesian designers. See Mignolo 2002 and his discussion of a critical cosmopolitanism divorced from coloniality.

9

Andi Joe, “The spirit of Batak ‘Horas’ by Ghea Panggabean,” in Mediahavefun, March 29, 2018, available at https://mediahavefun.com/the-spirit-of-batak-horas-byghea-panggabean.

10 This custom originates from the Javanese courts, where people would be wearing different batik patterns that would indicate their ceremonial status, a custom that was revived by Suharto but modernized and transformed into a family tradition. 11 See MAMPU (Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Gender Equality) http://mampu. or.id/. 12 Meskimmon 2011, xxviii. 13 The term haute couture used with reference to high-end, bespoke fashion is actually protected by law in France, and precise guidelines are given by the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, with a list of companies entitled to make use of the term. The term couture is more widespread and sometimes loosely applied to anything that is not mass produced. The Asian Couture Federation is a membership organization, “the first pan-Asian body in Asia to recognize, support and promote the Asian Couturiers who have exhibited the highest levels of artistry in fashion design. Additionally, the ACF supports talented couture-level designers globally as part of its international program and on a select basis,” see https://www. asiancouturefederation.com/about-us. Members also have the chance to sell through the Federation’s online initiative Couturissimo. 14 As Narumi notes, with reference to Bhabha, “the Orientalising gaze has cultivated an ‘ambivalent’ identity formation for the non-Western fashion practitioner.” Narumi 2000, 326.

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15 The city is permanently congested, there is insufficient public transport, and it takes hours to move from one area to the other. The traffic often comes to a standstill and walking is virtually impossible. People have to calculate constantly how long it will take them to reach a specific destination and estimate how long they might be sitting in traffic. Indeed, if anything can be done by Go-Jek, a motorbike service established in 2010 that provides everything from food to laundry collection and delivery to document couriering, people will not hesitate to use it. It is a feature of Jakarta life, where, as a friend told me, “life is ruled by apps to save time.” The new subway, Jakarta MRT (Mass Rapid Transit), was completed in 2019 and should ease things up. 16 The excerpts are from Saradeta Sinaga, “Designing for Brides,” February 24, 2017, Prestige Indonesia, available at http://prestigeonline.com/id/fashion/designers/ sebastian-gunawan-on-designing-for-brides/. 17 I wrote about Auguste Soesastro in my blog, “From Jakarta #9,” in November 2015, available at https://alex-therealdoesnoteffaceitself.blogspot.com/2015/11/fromjakarta-9.html?q=Auguste+soesastro. 18 Kraton in Javanese means palace or court, and kromo is the word for “the speech level of Javanese used to superiors and strangers or on formal occasions,” as the Javanese-English Dictionary compiled by Stuart Robson and Singgih Wibisono explains. The terms imaginatively convey the difference between “couture” and “ready-to-wear,” and the implicit hierarchy between the two. 19 Alus means “refined,” and it is a moral quality as well as an aesthetic one, with reference to courtesy and elegance as well as impeccable behavior. It is a highly sought quality of courtiers. In Javanese court dancing, the alusan characters have a specific way of moving with an interesting blend of masculine and feminine qualities, so much so that many alusan roles are taken on by female dancers. Alus is a way of being in the world. See Hughes-Freeland 2010, 82. 20 Edith Emeralda, “In Conversation with Auguste Soesastro,” Indonesia Tatler, August 31, 2017, available at http://www.indonesiatatler.com/society/in-conversation-withauguste-soesastro-on-all-things-fashion. 21 Athina Ibrahim, “A Fashion Standard with Auguste Soesastro,” September 4, 2013, Whiteboard Journal, available at https://www.whiteboardjournal.com/ interview/10838/a-fashion-standard-with-auguste-soesastro/. 22 Athina Ibrahim, “A Fashion Standard with Auguste Soesastro,” September 4, 2013, Whiteboard Journal, available at https://www.whiteboardjournal.com/ interview/10838/a-fashion-standard-with-auguste-soesastro/. 23 See for example, “Kraton: understanding Indonesia through Auguste Soesastro,” by Flamingo, available on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/254242597. 24 The film Sumurup is available at http://www.visionare.id/fashionfilms/sumurup. As for Meisel’s shoot, a comment on the controversy it raised can be found in The Guardian of August 9, 2010 in an article by Sarah Phillips, “Vogue Italia’s oil spill fashion shoot: slick or crude?” available at https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/09/ vogue-italia-oil-spill-fashion-shoot, whereas a CBS article in which the photo shoot is dubbed as “stirring muck” is available at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ vogue-italias-oil-inspired-spread-stirs-muck/. 25 Joseph Mandagi, “I am not into trends. Tri Handoko talks designing honest cloths,” Daman, May 27, 2017, available at http://daman.co.id/im-not-into-trends-trihandoko-talks-designing-honest-clothes/.

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26 Joseph Mandagi, “I am not into trends. Tri Handoko talks designing honest cloths,” Daman, May 27, 2017, available at http://daman.co.id/im-not-into-trends-trihandoko-talks-designing-honest-clothes/. For an interview in English see also the video, “Passion for Fashion,” on Vimeo, with Janice Hermijanto in conversation with Tri Handoko, available at https://vimeo.com/120767093. 27 A good video in which Tri Handoko discusses Mind Game at length, and in which the film that was projected can be seen, is Dave Hendrik Main Ke Rumah Designer Tri Handoko 2/2, part of the series Look good with Dave Hendrik, published on August 2, 2016, which can be seen at https://www.metube.id/videos/324531/ 9of7pkWsYzAXm9THe8oV (in Bahasa Indonesia). 28 Most recently the Special Tribute Award to celebrate twenty-five years of activity, given by JFW in November 2016. 29 A video can be seen on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_jHcZBIg4. It was uploaded in 2014 but Boi Sakti has not been involved in dance since 2010. Helly Minarti, who has made a study of Gusmiati Suid and Boi Sakti in her 2012 thesis, tells me that the main dancer is Davit Fitrik and that the production is definitely 2009 (Minarti pers. comm. May 2018). 30 Steele 2013, 33. 31 See Craik 2005 for a discussion of the significance of uniforms in contemporary culture. 32 Fit models are models on which designers and brands test garments. They tend to have specific proportions and are quite different from runway models, often shorter and fuller so that clothes of different sizes can be cut on them. Petite fit models are crucial to the industry as clothes for smaller women cannot simply be adapted by cutting the length, and most women’s height rarely matches that of runway models. 33 Sylviana Hamdani, “In Indonesian Fashion Industry Uniforms are anything but,” in Jakarta Globe, November 27, 2014, available at http://jakartaglobe.id/features/ indonesian-fashion-industry-uniform-design-anything/. 34 Sylviana Hamdani, “In Indonesian Fashion Industry Uniforms are anything but,” in Jakarta Globe, November 27, 2014, available at http://jakartaglobe.id/features/ indonesian-fashion-industry-uniform-design-anything/. 35 See the company’s profile available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_ continue=12&v=KJ7QOy6E1_s. However, one needs to evaluate all sustainability claims very carefully in the light of yet another damning report concerning PT Kahatex, PT Five Star Textile, and PT Insansandang Internusa about which the Bandung court ordered the Sumedang district government to “suspend, revoke and cancel” wastewater discharge permits in view of the “abject pollution” of the Citarum River. See the article by Debbie Price, “Worse for Wear: Indonesia’s Textile Boom,” February 2, 2017, in Undark Truth Beauty and Science, available at https://undark. org/article/indonesia-textiles-citarum-river-pollution/. 36 Susanna Perini, pers. comm. November 2015. 37 Vickers 2012, 52. 38 Rintang Azhar, “Art x Fashion Exhibition,” in Jakarta Now, December 5, 2017, available at http://nowjakarta.co.id/art-x-fashion-exhibition-examines-the-image-ofbody-and-clothing.

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39 See “What is a concept store,” Insider Trends, July 28, 2016, available at https://www.insider-trends.com/what-is-a-concept-store/. 40 Daman editorial team, “Biasa designer Susanna Perini discusses designing for men and having a muse,” Daman, February 15, 2015, available at http://daman.co.id/insiderbiasa-designer-susanna-perini-discuss-designing-for-men-and-having-a-muse/. 41 See the entry, “Biasa at Indonesian Fashion Week 2012,” available at http:// biasagroup.com/biasa-at-indonesia-fashion-week-2012/. 42 Kurniawan Ulung, “Susanna Perini her artistic journey,” The Jakarta Post, March 3, 2018, available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/03/03/susanna-periniher-artistic-journey.html. 43 Martha Ellen Nuttall, “Introducing the brand,” Not Just a Label, #SS15 Collection, available at https://www.notjustalabel.com/designer/marthaellen?collection=192377. 44 Martha Nuttall, pers. comm. May 2018. 45 Amrikh Palupi, “What’s with Dian Pelangi and Anniesa Hasibuan?” Available at https://www.dream.co.id/lifestyle/-ada-apa-dengan-diang-pelangi-dan-annisahasibuan-161205n.html (in Bahasa), December 6, 2016. 46 The video of the show can be seen on Vimeo, https://vimeo.com/122872304. The website of the WGSF still featured Anniesa Hasibuan in June 2018 when I last accessed it, see http://www.wgsf-london.co.uk/designers/anniesa-fashion/. I spoke briefly on the phone with the director of WGSF, also in June 2018, but she was not keen to discuss Anniesa, claiming not to know anything about her and claiming ignorance of the fact Anniesa was currently in jail. She said it had been “such a long time ago,” and that the Foundation always and only selects designers on merit. 47 Caitlin Chang, “Indonesian designer makes NY Fashion Week history,” SBS , September 16, 2016, available at https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/life/culture/ article/2016/09/16/indonesian-designer-makes-ny-fashion-week-history. 48 As reported by Hannah Beech, with contribution by Muktita Suhartono in The New York Times, May 31, 2018, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/ fashion/anniesa-hasibuan-indonesia-travel-fraud.html. Tety Nurhayati is also someone with a meteoric rise in fashion, as before running her scouting business to promote Indonesia to the US and Europe, she ran a catering company and later made a documentary film about tourism in Indonesia. But her dream was to promote Indonesian fashion and help spread “Made in Indonesia” to the world. Through the Indonesian Creative Hub (ICH), which she founded in 2014, she has been acting as a consultant of several SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises). Besides Anniesa Hasibuan, IFG has presented the collections of C By Angel, Coreta, Mira Indria, Mety Choa, Anggia Mawardi, Vivi Zubedi as reported by Hanik, “America and the World,” Wanita Indonesia, March 12, 2017, available at http://wanitaindonesia.co.id/ index.php?view=viewarticle&id=17030083 (in Bahasa Indonesia). 49 Rahman Indra, “Anniesa Hasibuan, between First Travel and a career as designer,” CNN Indonesia, August 11, 2017, available at https://www.cnnindonesia.com/gayahidup/20170811125736-277-233979/anniesa-hasibuan-antara-first-travel-dankarier-desainer (in Bahasa Indonesia). Indra gives further details of the amount of money First Travel amassed and also reports that Anniesa Hasibuan had initiated a number of collaborations with leading labels and with shopping centers. In other words, she (or someone for her) rapidly put into effect a well-known business model,

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evidently researched, and what allowed her to do so was the availability of capital to get started. I have not been able to verify the figures given by Indra. 50 Kristina Rodulfo, “Muslim Designer Anniesa Hasibuan had an All-Immigrant Cast of Models at NYFW,” in Elle, February 15, 2017, available at https://www.elle.com/ fashion/news/a43064/anniesa-hasibuan-fall-2017-show-immigrant-models/. Rodulfo reports that speaking through an interpreter Hasibuan said, “For me, fashion is an open world. I don’t want to discriminate. The ability to express diversity in this business is a value that I hold on to. [Diversity] is what fashion is for me. This show was the opportunity to show that Islam is beautiful.” The diversity theme was picked up again at NYFW18, in September 2017. Hasibuan was absent as she was being investigated back in Indonesia, but Dian Pelangi and Vivi Zubedi, also brought over by IFG, were understood by the media to be using their hijabs to challenge Trump, to emphasize diversity. See Agence France-Press, The Guardian, September 8, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/sep/08/hijab-is-beautifuldesigners-challenge-trump-at-new-york-fashion-week. 51 I have not met Anniesa Hasibuan in person but after hearing her speak in a video my impression was that she was far from articulate, nor was she able to indicate what the concept for her collection was. It was all about “cute” and “lovely.” Perhaps this was because her English is not fluent, nevertheless it was hard to match her artless speech to the clever press releases. See “Arabesque. The Kaftan Festival,” available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RIayPKE7Sg. She also calls her collection “Batik First Travel,” a very private joke at that point in time. By the look of it, it seemed cheap print batik. Later she ditched batik and only used fine silks. 52 Perhaps Anniesa Hasibuan was not the only person taking part in this very elaborate fashion scam that ran alongside the First Travel fraud and might have involved more money laundering than it has been revealed. But I have no proof whatsoever and will leave it at that, as it is beyond the purview of this book to engage in an investigation. I can only heed the words of Misha Glenny when he writes, “The pursuit of dirty money is a complicated business . . . here and there one may encounter apparently pristine pools that are in fact contaminated with colourless, odourless chemicals. Only the most expert bio-chemist can tell the good capital from the filthy lucre as it mixes and mingles,” Glenny 2008, 171. 53 Huggan 2001, 16. 54 Geczy 2013, 19. 55 Geczy 2013, 184.

Chapter 4 1

Vashti Trisawati Sujanto pers. comm. March 2018. Cynthia worked from 1982 to 1986 at Femina Group teen magazine Gadis and then established the now defunct teen magazine Mode. She is highly regarded as a fashion editor. See for example the piece “Always engaging the heart,” by Anton Ryadie written in 2011 about her and Sita Subyakto collaborating with Biyan, available at https://antonryadiestory. wordpress.com/2011/10/15/headline-creative-communications/ (in Bahasa) and the tribute written by Harry Gunawan on December 16, 2017, “Fashion is my

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Passion,” available at http://fxharrygunawan.blogspot.com/2017/12/fashion-is-mypassion.html. 2

Modeled on Harper’s Bazaar, during the fascist era Grazia propounded fascist values, relinquishing them after World War Two but still retaining a somewhat conservative outlook. Published by Arnoldo Mondadori, which belongs to former premier and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, Grazia now targets fashion-curious career women, avid readers of current affairs news, though this is interpreted by its editors as an interest in scrutinizing celebrities’ lives. Grazia Indonesia broadly follows this same format.

3

See for comparative purposes the study made by Müller and Röser on connectivity in German households. As they point out, “the findings underline that approved media practices make sense as long as the demands and practices of everyday life do not change . . . domestication theory underlines this insight by emphasizing the fact that new media are only integrated if their use fits into the routines of the common household.” Müller and Röser 2017, 69.

4

Nugroho et al. 2012, 65. See also the Asia-Pacific digital news report by Nielsen and Kalogeropoulos 2017 on the development of online platforms in the region. Many magazines have already disappeared and in 2017 the Femina Group underwent a difficult moment with a number of employees being laid off. See Resto Diantina Putri, “Crisis at the Femina Group,” (in Bahasa) Tirto .id, November 2, 2017, available at https://tirto.id/krisis-femina-group-gaji-wartawan-dicicil-bisnissingset-majalah-czsf.

5

Nugroho et al. 2012, 48.

6

Jurriëns and Tapsell 2017, 7.

7

Nugroho et al. 2012, 54.

8

As Uhlirova notes, “the fashion film has already reshaped the industry in more than one way . . . the moving image has proven to be an enticing alternative to other forms of (re)presentation because it has a capacity to open fashion to a performative dimension with a different kind of sensorial and experiential complexity,” Uhlirova 2013, 118. Fashion films are now rather common in Indonesia, see for example the earlier mentioned Visionaire portal available at http://www.visionare.id/featuresfashionfilms.

9

In an interview with Robert Young, Svida Alisjahbana explained, “I gathered all my new top editors and I told them they would have to become totally platform agnostic. They would no longer be called chief editors. From now on, they would be the chief community officers (CCO) of their respective titles . . . now all my editors are officially and personally responsible for their audience in every single channel from print to online to tablet apps to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and whatever else.” Robert Young, “Femina Group, Defending Turf,” BoF, May 7, 2014, available at https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/femina-groupdefending-turf.

10 Niche fashion magazines, according to Lyngen-Jorlén 2017, “speak to a highly fashion-literate, global readership; they mix the codes of style magazines, glossy women’s magazines and art catalogues. They are often produced and read by people engaged in the business of creating fashion taste.” An example of a niche fashion magazine is the iconic I-D or Rankin’s Hunger. 11 Jones 2010, 91–117.

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12 Reksodipoetro 2016, “The story behind Indonesia’s most progressive women’s magazine,” https://web.archive.org/web/20170626231104/https://flamingogroup. com/online-magazine-magdalene-co-offers-rarely-heard-perspectives-for-womenin-indonesia. I wrote for the magazine in November 2014 contributing the article, “Let’s talk about going grey,” signed with my nom de plume Alex B., available at https://www.academia.edu/14356728/Lets_talk_about_going_grey, and was also interviewed for the magazine by Intan Febriani in 2018, “Breaking the taboo surrounding older women: a conversation with Alex Bruni,” June 27, 2018 available at https://magdalene.co/news-1787-breaking-the-taboo-surrounding-older-womena-conversation-with-alex-bruni.html. 13 Findlay 2017, 4. 14 The ceiling for covers in Western fashion magazines seems to be 40 to 45 years of age. 15 This was confirmed in an interview with one of the magazine’s editors. A YouTube interview with Sarita Thaib about modeling for Dewi is available here https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=itFI8L6CMyM. 16 Once a year, often around June/July, a number of prestigious glossies such as Vogue, Elle, or Harper’s Bazaar have an “Ageless” or “Timeless” themed issue with a former supermodel or a famous actress on the cover. British Vogue started as early as 2010, when still led by Alexandra Shulman. Vogue Italia, now led by Emanuele Farneti after the passing of Franca Sozzani, had a “Timeless” issue in October 2017 with model Lauren Hutton, then 73, on its cover, thus breaking the age 45 ceiling, and features with Benedetta Barzini, Maye Musk, and a range of less famous older models, including myself. Farneti, in his editorial, emphasized the need for inclusivity but sounded as if the whole thing was none other than a box-ticking exercise. See Emanuele Farneti, “The Timeless issue,” October 5, 2017 available at http://www. vogue.it/en/news/daily-news/2017/10/05/the-timeless-issue-vogue-italia-october2017/?refresh_ce. 17 These fashion for all ages features are the way fashion magazines deal with age, through being somewhat prescriptive and insisting that there is a way of wearing specific clothing entirely predicated on one’s age. In the UK, The Guardian Saturday supplement has been carrying such a feature, entitled “Fashion for all ages,” since 2009. Many over-40 models regard this as their “bread and butter” in terms of bookings. 18 Handajani 2014, 95. 19 Entwistle 2002 (2000), 237. 20 Robert Young, “Femina Group, Defending Turf,” BoF, May 7, 2014 available at https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/femina-groupdefending-turf. 21 See Santoso and Erin Metasawi, “Kisah di balik sehelai pakaian,” (Story behind a dress), Dewi 3, 2018, 43–4. 22 Duffy 2013, 122. 23 “The world according to Vogue,” is the title of a 2007 paper by Helen Kopnina that discusses the role of culture (and cultural difference) in fashion magazines, using Vogue as a case study, but as Kopnina says, her methods of analysis could be applied to other magazines in any country.

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24 Rocamora points out that though there is a difference between a fashion magazine and a woman’s lifestyle magazine, the latter still includes fashion so the boundaries can be porous. Rocamora 2009, 57–8. 25 Robert Young, “Femina Group, Defending Turf,” BoF, May 7, 2014 available at https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/femina-groupdefending-turf. 26 See also Jones 2010. Jones’ paper has been republished in various edited collections, so occasionally there is a date discrepancy. I refer throughout to the original 2010 version. 27 See Wanita Wirausaha Femina, http://www.wanitawirausaha.com/. Australia has partnered with Femina to support female entrepreneurs through a competition running annually since 2011, see http://indonesia.embassy.gov.au/jakt/ MR11_025.html. 28 Saviq Bachdar, “How does Femina survive amid media disruptions?” in Marketeers Indonesia, February 26, 2018 available at http://marketeers.com/bagaimana-feminabertahan-di-tengah-disrupsi-media/. 29 Robert Young, “Femina Group, Defending Turf,” BoF, May 7, 2014 available at https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/femina-groupdefending-turf. 30 Sen and Hill 2007, 63. 31 Sen and Hill 2007, 64. 32 See Payne and Drakes 2013. 33 Nelson Best 2017, 203. 34 Tess Koman, “What it is like to be the editor of Cosmo Indonesia,” May 10, 2016 available at https://www.cosmopolitan.com/career/news/a58135/cosmo-indonesiafira-basuki-eic-interview/. 35 Paul Millar, “Whatever happened to / The editor of Playboy Indonesia,” June 1, 2018 available at http://sea-globe.com/whatever-happened-to-the-editor-of-playboyindonesia/. 36 A short video film about the feature is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=dwl51PoxiTI. 37 Ashley Graham, TED Talk, available at https://www.ted.com/talks/ashley_graham_ plus_size_more_like_my_size. 38 Chekka Riesca, “Bebas Bergaya Tanpa Memandang Usia,” (Carefree style with no restrictions of age) in Harper’s Bazaar Indonesia online, May 12, 2017 http://www. harpersbazaar.co.id/articles/read/5/2017/3949/Bebas-Bergaya-Tanpa-MemandangUsia. 39 Maye Musk was on the cover of Vogue Korea in July 2017; thus, it is not unlikely that there will be more older Caucasian models on the cover of franchise magazines in Asia. 40 See About us http://www.prestigemag.co/about-us-prestige/. 41 When the Italian Maria Grazia Chiuri took on the directorship of Maison Dior, the first woman ever, she sent models on the runway in September 2016 with a t-shirt saying, “We should all be feminist,” the title of a TED Talk by writer Chimananda Ngozi Adichie. It made an important statement about Chiuri’s vision, who later

174

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commented, “when you are a woman making clothes for women, then fashion is not just about how you look. It is about how you feel and how you think . . . I am not interested in the old stereotypes, of what a feminist looks like or doesn’t look like. I don’t think there is one way to be a feminist.” Jess Cartner-Morley, “Maria Grazia Chiuri on fashion, feminism and Dior: ‘You must fight for your ideas’,” The Guardian, March 18, 2017 available at https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/mar/18/ maria-grazia-chiuri-fashion-feminism-fight-for-ideas. 42 Hannah Al Rashid’s channel is available at https://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCa6RbagSdWfa9b7ILqQxDgg. 43 See “March on, Speak up,” by Hannah Al Rashid, Prestige Indonesia, March 2018, 74–5. A YouTube video about the six women is available at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=29vVqvYDIlA. 44 Lily Kuo, “How the #MeToo movement came to Mongolia,” The Guardian, June 14, 2018, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/14/how-the-metoomovement-came-to-mongolia. For Indonesia see Ally Foster, “CCTV of woman being groped sparks Indonesian #MeToo movement,” News.com.au, January 26, 2018 available at https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/cctv-ofwoman-being-groped-sparks-indonesian-metoo-movement/news-story/4416e0f6ae 7112482d2517410afe8788. However, a recent case of an Indonesian teacher jailed for pornography because she had documented the sexual harassment to which her boss had subjected her, points to how difficult the situation is for Indonesian women in the current political climate, see Reuters, “Indonesia jails teacher who documented sexual harassment,” The Guardian, November 15, 2018 available at https://www. theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/15/indonesia-jails-teacher-who-documentedsexual-harassment. 45 Far from denying that violence against women occurs across the class, race, and ethnicity divide, I need to point out here that the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has specifically indicated that several forms of violence are often culturally determined and culturally sanctioned, e.g. dowry burning and female circumcision. Thus the issue of violence against women needs to be further nuanced and different strategies are needed to eradicate it. See Renzetti et al. 2012. 46 According to Bourdieu, a cultural product is a “constituted” taste “which has been raised . . . to the full reality of the finished product by a process of objectification which . . . is almost always the work of professionals.” 2010, 228. 47 Available at https://magdalene.co/. 48 “About us,” https://magdalene.co/about. 49 Aya Sadariskar, “My curly hair is not the problem; our beauty standard is,” Magdalene.co, April 10, 2018 available at https://magdalene.co/news-1701-mycurly-hair-is-not-the-problem-our-beauty-standard-is.html. 50 Azalea Johannes, “Puteri Indonesia and The Obsession with Height,” Magdalene.co., March 19, 2018 available at https://magdalene.co/news-1670-puteri-indonesia-andthe-obsession-with-height.html. 51 Findlay 2017. I am myself one of the personal style bloggers of this period as I began my own blog in 2010. I never transitioned to sponsored content, however. I guess this makes me one of Findlay’s bloggers of the “second wave of style blogging” behaving like first wave bloggers, the fully independent ones who were not (yet) interested in monetizing their content, see Findlay 2017, 46–7. I continue to blog,

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though my blogging style has definitely evolved, going through many changes. I keep my blogging separate from my “model” website, www.alexbmodel.co.uk, which, however, is linked to it, through a blog feed. 52 Video-blogging is more commonly associated with YouTube channels, but videos can also be uploaded to Vimeo—though not in Indonesia as there are restrictions on the use of this platform, for the Indonesian government believes it contravenes its anti-pornography laws (but the ban can be circumvented by using a VPN). Also, videos can be embedded in a blog post. Both Blogspot and Wordpress, the most commom blogging platforms, offer this option. Earlier Instagram allowed videos of only very short duration. However, the IGTV app introduced in summer 2018 now permits integrated video content on all types of Instagram accounts. See Catriona Croft-Cusworth, “Indonesia bans Vimeo, ” The Interpreter, Lowy Institute, May 16, 2014 available at https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/indonesia-bans-vimeo. 53 Several Indonesian bloggers have been internationally endorsed, see for example the list in The Culture Trip, an online platform about travel and lifestyle based in the UK. Edira Putri, “The 10 Best Indonesian bloggers,” January 18, 2018 available at https://theculturetrip.com/asia/indonesia/articles/the-10-best-indonesian-bloggers/. 54 These are the top bloggers alone, the ones often featured in the press, who are invited to fashion shows and who have turned themselves into influencers. 55 Luvaas 2013b, 75. 56 Rocamora 2016, 246. 57 See for example the article in Indonesia Tatler by Karina Witjaksono, July 26, 2016, “5 Indonesian Fashion Influencers That Will Inspire Your Wardrobe” available at http://www.indonesiatatler.com/fashion-beauty/fashion/5-fashion-influencers-thatwill-inspire-your-wardrobe. 58 A. Kurniawan Ulung, “When fashion meets social media,” The Jakarta Post, April 5, 2017 available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2017/04/05/when-fashionmeets-social-media.html. All the quotes are from this article. 59 Menkes as quoted in Findlay 2017, 159. 60 Luvaas 2013b, 55–76. 61 When I interviewed Ayla Dimitri in November 2015 in Jakarta, she said she began blogging in 2009 but there is no trace of posts earlier than 2011 in her blog, which in any case she no longer writes. The last post is dated June 2016. 62 Ayla Dimitri pers. comm. November 2015. This may be a project that has been shelved. 63 When I attended JFW16, a FROW seat was always reserved for her at each show. She only attended a handful of shows and I often ended up sitting where she would have, as I had to wait first until everyone else was seated. We joked about my temporary identity as Ayla Dimitri when we finally met. 64 Anastasia W. Wibowo, “Ayla Dimitri shares her top tips on how to curate the perfect Instagram feed,” February 27, 2018 available at http://www.indonesiatatler.com/ society/ayla-dimitri-shares-her-top-tips-on-how-to-curate-the-perfect-instagram-feed. 65 Laila Achmad, “ Cerita tentang duni fashion, karier, dan kerja keras,” (A story about the world of fashion, career and hard work), February 12, 2016, Youthmanual available at https://www.youthmanual.com/post/profil/ayla-dimitri---cerita-tentangdunia-fashion-karier-dan-kerja-keras.

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66 Findlay 2017, 174. 67 Nelson Best 2017, 212.

Chapter 5 1

Jakarta is known as DKI Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and of the special region of Jakarta (Daerah Khusus Ibu Kota Jakarta). In reality, it is made up of distinct municipalities, the Ja-Bo-De-Ta-Bek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi).

2

Winarso 2011. In 1969, governor Ali Sadikin launched the “Kampung Improvement Programme,” with the support of the World Bank, recognizing the uniqueness of Jakarta kampungs and the need to provide them with basic facilities such as sanitation and waste management. See John L. Taylor, “Modern Jakarta needs its kampungs,” The Jakarta Post, January 16, 2016 available at http://www. thejakartapost.com/news/2016/01/16/modern-jakarta-needs-its-kampungs.html.

3

Herlambang et al. 2018, 5.

4

Herlambang et al. 2018, 2.

5

Jewell 2016, 27.

6

The already mentioned lack of green spaces is to be blamed on mall construction. See Lisa Siregar and Tasa Nugraza Barley, “Making the case for green space in Jakarta,” Jakarta Globe, August 6, 2010 available at https://web.archive.org/ web/20171119094810/http://jakartaglobe.id/archive/making-the-case-for-greenspace-in-jakarta/.

7

Silver 2008, 196.

8

Eddy Kasdiono, “Jakarta a city with many shopping centres,” The Jakarta Post, October 31, 2014 available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/10/31/ jakarta-a-city-with-many-shopping-centers.html. See also Widiyani 2018, 66–7.

9

See “Hartono Brothers Widen Lead On 2017 Forbes Indonesia Rich List,” Forbes, November 30, 2017 https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2017/11/30/hartonobrothers-widen-lead-on-2017-forbes-indonesia-rich-list/#28fd789d539b. I am highlighting this fact as it is not always fully grasped that Indonesia is home to the very rich, not only the dispossessed, which readily explains, at least in part, the availability and high consumption of luxury brands.

10 Herlambang et al. 2018, 17. 11 Alcohol is freely available in Indonesia, despite the ban on mini-mart sales, though it bears a massive luxury tax, recently hiked, raising the risk of smuggling. Wine is imported and also locally made in Bali, but it remains one of the most expensive drinks, with an average $18/20 per bottle even when locally produced. Although a ban on alcohol has been proposed because alcohol is offensive to Muslims, it is thought to be unlikely to pass. See “Why Indonesia is unlikely to ban booze,” The Economist, January 13, 2017 available at https://www.economist.com/theeconomist-explains/2017/01/13/why-indonesia-is-unlikely-to-ban-booze. 12 Food lovers will always recommend to eschew the sanitized environment of the mall restaurants and try out street food, which is delicious, though not necessarily prepared to high standards of hygiene. I would often get a bungkus (packet) from a

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warung and eat it at home or get it delivered by Go-Jek, but I loved “people watching” in malls, and as a fan of Japanese cuisine, malls were just right for me, with their array of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese restaurants. 13 Kusno 2010, 47. 14 Kate Lamb, “Inside the bubble: the air-conditioned alternate reality of Jakarta’s megamalls,” The Guardian, November 24, 2016 available at https://www.theguardian. com/cities/2016/nov/24/jakarta-megamalls-air-conditioned-alternate-reality. 15 See van Leeuwen, 2011. There are also podcasts about Jakarta malls for RN Drive, ABC Australia, e.g. Walyd, Ali, “Jakarta malls: the cities within cities where the poor are invisible,” June 5, 2013, with transcript available at http://www.abc.net.au/ radionational/programs/drive/jakarta-malls/4725338. 16 See Goodlander 2015 and Widiyani 2018. 17 See Varman and Belk 2012, 66–80. 18 See Dávila 2016. Indonesian malls have of course been discussed in the context of marketing and retailing in Southeast Asia as a region, such as Meyer-Ohle 2014, and there are numerous reports on malls and consumers, such as those by the Oxford Business Group see https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/. 19 See Omasta and Chappell 2015 and the already mentioned essay by Jennifer Goodlander 2015, 117–27. 20 More recently, Chinese home-grown luxury brands have begun competing with the “traditional” Euro-American luxury brands. According to reports, “Made in China” is no longer to do with supercheap and low-quality goods but is all set to conquer the global market. See Pascal Armoudom, “Luxury Goods: Made in China,” in AT Kearney, 2012 available at https://www.atkearney.com/documents/10192/ 576570/Luxury_Goods-Made_in_China.pdf/d712f67b-a254-4037-8766a186192f6853. See also Sylvia Yaganisako, “Manufacturing Made in Italy in China,” Stanford Anthropology Lecture, October 4, 2012, YouTube available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgVzQIjxVEk&t=550s. 21 Chadha and Husband 2010, 3–7. 22 Shukla, Singh, and Banerjee 2015, 265–78. 23 See Erich Joachimstahler, “What’s the right entry point for emerging markets?” Singapore Sessions, 2, 2012 available at http://vivaldigroup.com/en/wp-content/ uploads/sites/2/2017/04/2012-What%E2%80%99s-the-Right-Entry-Point-forEmerging-Markets-.pdf. 24 According to Ria Santoso, counterfeit products are not only freely sold but the counterfeit industry is growing, causing substantial loss of sales. “3.8 percent in pharmaceuticals, 8.5 percent in food and beverages, 12.6 percent in cosmetics, 33.5 percent in software, 37.2 percent in leather goods, 38.9 percent in apparel and 49.4 percent in printer ink, according to data published by MIAP.” See Ria Santoso, “Countering Counterfeiting in Indonesia,” Amcham, May 15, 2016 available at https://www.amcham.or.id/manufacturing-industry/5287-countering-counterfeitingin-indonesia. 25 See Baher Ibrahim, “This trend of young Muslim girls wearing a hijab is disturbing,” The Guardian, November 23, 2010 available at https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/belief/2010/nov/23/muslim-girls-wearing-hijab. See also Marisa Duma, “Wear a Hijab, You’d Look Prettier,” Magdalene, April 26, 2017 available at

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https://magdalene.co/news-1193-wear-a-hijab-you%E2%80%99d-look-prettierhow-one-christian-woman-perceives-hijab.html. 26 See Oxford Business Group 2015, 214 on the problems about developing retail tourism. As for rental prices, there is some unevenness, with Indonesian brands being hit more than foreign ones. Kate Lamb reports that, “high end designer stores pay minimal or no rent at all; the idea being that their presence imbues the mall with glamour prestige.” Kate Lamb, “Inside the bubble: the air-conditioned alternate reality of Jakarta’s megamalls,” The Guardian, November 24, 2016 available at https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/nov/24/jakarta-megamalls-airconditioned-alternate-reality. 27 Money laundering and the purchase of luxury goods is not, in any way, exclusive to Indonesia. It is another case of “mirror reflection,” which is the subtext of this book. The much talked about Panama papers leak of 2016 that revealed the offshore dealings of the rich and famous is a case in point. See Chris Hamblin, “Anti Money Laundering and Luxury Goods: Wealth-X Diligence,” Wealth-X, November 2, 2017 available at https://www.wealthx.com/diligence/2017/anti-money-laundering-luxurygoods-wealth-x-diligence/. 28 See Reuters, “Indonesia tightens rules to curb money laundering, terror funding,” September 13, 2017 available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesiamoneylaundering/indonesia-tightens-rules-to-curb-money-laundering-terror-fundingidUSKCN1BO179. The next arena for anti-money laundering regulations is that of bitcoin transactions. See Gifari, Anggorojati and Yazid 2017. 29 Kusumowidagdo et al. 2016. 30 Obviously, I could not do this more than a couple of times as they would recognize me on subsequent visits, but I got away with it by doing it in different malls in different locations. I also got into the habit of checking where each item was made, and constantly looked at labels, thus I discovered, for example, that all the Calvin Klein outfits and jeans sold in Indonesia are “Made in China” for Calvin Klein, something I was not aware of. 31 However, Biyan and Sebastian Gunawan occupy level one of Plaza Senayan. 32 Ghea Panggabean, pers.comm. April 2018. I refer to Ghea’s experience because she is one of the few designers that can claim to have been active since the 1980s and has therefore lived through the different phases of fashion growth in Indonesia. 33 Lehtonen and Mäenpää 1997, 138. 34 Derrick Juda, “More open space in Jakarta, please!” The Jakarta Post, January 2, 2016 available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/01/02/more-openspace-jakarta-please.html. 35 Despite the moratorium of 2011, more malls were built in 2016 and 2017. See “Jakarta to have New Malls This Year,” Tempo.co, April 15, 2016, available at https:// en.tempo.co/read/news/2016/04/15/055763032/Jakarta-to-have-New-Malls-ThisYear. Also see the article by Chris Michael and Yusni Aziz, “ ‘My house was turned to debris’: Jakarta’s evicted write their story,” November 23, 2016 for The Guardian City, a project of reportage about the cities of the world supported by The Rockfeller Foundation available at https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/nov/23/houseturned-debris-voices-evicted-kampung-pulo-jakarta.

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36 See Kastner 2014, 2. 37 See Kate Lamb, “Inside the bubble: the air-conditioned alternate reality of Jakarta’s megamalls,” The Guardian, November 24, 2016 available at https://www. theguardian.com/cities/2016/nov/24/jakarta-megamalls-air-conditioned-alternatereality. 38 Ayu Utami as quoted by Kate Lamb, “Inside the bubble: the air-conditioned alternate reality of Jakarta’s megamalls,” The Guardian, November 24, 2016 available at https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/nov/24/jakarta-megamalls-airconditioned-alternate-reality. 39 See van Leeuwen 2011, 161. 40 Sylviana Hamdani, “Plaza Indonesia celebrates 27th Anniversary,” Jakarta Globe, March 10, 2017 available at http://jakartaglobe.id/features/plaza-indonesiacelebrates-27th-anniversary-fashion-art-exhibitions/. 41 Ria Juwita pers. comm. October 16, 2015. 42 This is not just in Indonesia, of course. Carolyn Mair (and earlier Julia Twigg 2013) notes that fashion tends to ignore older women. See Mair 2018, 66. As an older model, I come up against preconceptions about age all the time. See my interview for Io Donna, “La modella Alex Bruni: Dopo i 50 anni la svolta,” by Michaela K. Bellisario, January 15, 2019 available at https://www.iodonna.it/attualita/costume-esocieta/2019/01/15/la-modella-alex-bruni-a-50-anni-ho-cambiato-la-mia-vita-e-orasono-una-modella-grey/?refresh_ce-cp. 43 Ria Juwita pers. comm. October 16, 2015. 44 Niken Prathivi, “Inside the world of arisan,” The Jakarta Post, May 5, 2013 available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/05/05/inside-worldarisan.html. 45 The Italian term is actually more technical but I am using it here in a broad sense. As Nanni Strada explains, a stilista is someone that determines the whole look, creating the complete image from start to finish, which will then influence consumers at the level of what to buy, a role embodied in the 1970s by Italian stilisti, such as Walter Albini and Enzo Fiorucci among others and Nanni Strada himself. See Archivi della Moda del Novecento, “Stilista e fashion designer. l’effimero e il suo opposto?” available at http:// www.moda.san.beniculturali.it/wordpress/?percorsi=stilista-e-fashion-designer. 46 Janna Soekasah Joesoef pers. comm. March 2018. 47 BoF team and McKinsey and Company, “Fashion in 2018/07. AI gets real,” January 2, 2018 available at https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/ top-industry-trends-2018-7-ai-gets-real. 48 Style is deemed to be so important that the word was deployed in the title of the very useful, fact-filled booklet on fashion and style in Indonesia, produced by the Ministry of Trade (TREDA) in 2009. 49 Witzig 2012, 86–7. 50 Luvaas 2016. 51 Lifter 2013, 181. 52 Entwistle 2000, 37. 53 Pangetsu and Dewi 2017, 228.

180

NOTES

54 Kate Lamb, “Welcome to Twitter city: is there no limit to Jakarta’s social media obsession?” The Guardian Cities, November 21, 2016 available at https://www. theguardian.com/cities/2016/nov/21/twitter-city-facebook-jakarta-live-week-socialmedia-obsession-. Lamb gives a figure of 80 million users concentrated in Jakarta, which of course does not make up even close to half of the total population of Indonesia, but the number of users is constantly growing and the Semiocast report is now more than six years old. 55 The Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII) has indicated that about 85 percent of Indonesians have online access through their phones. Quoted in Pangetsu and Dewi 2017, 235. 56 A unicorn company is, according to Aileen Lee, who first used the term, a rare start-up with a value exceeding $1 billion. See Aileen Lee, “Welcome to the Unicorn Club,” Tech Crunch 2013 available at https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcometo-the-unicorn-club/?guccounter=1. 57 See ASEAN UP https://aseanup.com/top-e-commerce-sites-indonesia/. 58 In Indonesia the cash desk has an array of different machines from different banks to process debit and credit cards, rather than just one. This is mirrored online by having different payment systems, again according to bank. This, as Moore notes, means that “tech time is wasted on integrations and finance-team time on accounts,” Moore 2017, 267. 59 Pangetsu and Dewi 2017, 249. 60 Moore 2017, 256–74. 61 Moore 2017, 269. 62 Moore 2017, 266. 63 The Economist, “E-commerce to receive a regulatory makeover,” September 21, 2017 available at http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1295912713&Country =Indonesia&topic=Economy. 64 The Economist, “E-commerce to receive a regulatory makeover,” September 21, 2017 available at http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1295912713&Country =Indonesia&topic=Economy. 65 The Economist, “E-commerce to receive a regulatory makeover,” September 21, 2017 available at http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1295912713&Country =Indonesia&topic=Economy. 66 The Economist, “The 13,466-island problem,” A special report. February 27, 2016 available at https://www.economist.com/special-report/2016/02/27/the-13466island-problem. 67 Evi Mariani, “Jason Lamuda: Building Berrybenka for local designers to grow,” The Jakarta Post, October 10, 2013 available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/ news/2013/10/10/jason-lamuda-building-berrybenka-local-designers-grow.html. 68 See Anka Idris, “Rise of fashion ecommerce in Indonesia,” The Jakarta Globe, August 7, 2014 available at http://jakartaglobe.id/features/rise-fashion-e-commerceindonesia/. See also Yakhlef 2015 for a discussion of the bodily and spatial quality of the individual shopper’s experience. 69 Shweta Modgil, “How Berrybenka Is Changing The Fashion Ecommerce Game In Indonesia With Private Labels & Physical Outlets,” Inc42.com, June 19, 2017

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available at https://inc42.com/indonesia/berrybenka-startup-indonesia-fashionecommerce/. 70 Private label indicates clothing manufactured by one company but sold under the brand name of another. 71 Facebook Business Success Story 2016, “Berrybenka. Popping up in style,” available at https://www.facebook.com/business/success/berrybenka. 72 Amy Westervelt, “Startups See Lucrative Niche in Plus-Size Clothing,” The Wall Street Journal, November 26, 2017 available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/ startups-see-lucractive-niche-in-plus-size-clothing-1511752321. 73 Anisa Melur A. Maulani, “With ‘eight digit’ USD new funding in hand, Berrybenka is set for greater O2O push,” E27, January 26, 2017, available at https://e27.co/with-eightdigit-usd-new-funding-in-hand-berrybenka-is-set-for-greater-o2o-push-20170126/. 74 David Ramli, “JD and Lazada Square off in Indonesia, Asia’s next e-commerce prize,” The Business of Fashion, July 6, 2017 available at https://www. businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/jd-alibaba-lazada-amazon-ecommerce-in-indonesia. 75 Cindy Silviana and Ed Davies, “China tech giants bet on untangling logistics of Indonesian e-commerce,” Reuters Technology News, May 15, 2018 available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-tech-china/china-tech-giants-bet-onuntangling-logistics-of-indonesian-e-commerce-idUSKCN1IG07Z. 76 This is indeed the most widespread method of payment in Indonesia where many people do not have bank accounts, although the Alipay-style QR payment is also gaining ground as is also the BlackBerry Messenger, still alive in Indonesia though discontinued elsewhere. See Anton Hermansyah, “BlackBerry Messenger, Alipay to launch e-wallet,” The Jakarta Post, October 10, 2017 available at http://www. thejakartapost.com/news/2017/10/10/blackberry-messenger-alipay-to-launch-ewallet.html. 77 This and the earlier quote are from Vikram Alexei Kansara, “Inside Farfetch’s Store of the Future,” BoF, April 12, 2017 available at https://www.businessoffashion.com/ articles/bof-exclusive/inside-farfetchs-store-of-the-future. 78 News Desk, “Biyan releases Studio 133’s 2019 spring/summer collection,” The Jakarta Post, November 8, 2018 available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/ life/2018/11/08/biyan-releases-studio-133s-2019-springsummer-collection.html. 79 Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify expanded in Southeast Asian in 2013, partnering with SingTel and covering Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, offering tailor-made solutions, such as availability in languages other than English, to each country. Shopify is not an online marketplace, it works as a virtual shop, for which members pay “rent” through a monthly subscription. See Enricko Lukman, “After Singapore and India, Shopify launches in Indonesia and Malaysia,” August 22, 2013 available at https://www.techinasia.com/singapore-india-shopify-launches-indonesia. 80 Kapersky Lab, a global software security group reported on fraud in Indonesia in 2016, declaring Indonesia the leading country in terms of online financial fraud. See Ross Hogan, “Online Scams in Indonesia: 26% of Consumers Become Victim of Fraud,” Indonesia-Investment, May 31, 2016 available at https://www.indonesiainvestments.com/news/todays-headlines/online-scams-in-indonesia-26-ofconsumers-become-victim-of-fraud/item6871?.

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81 Tessa Tjahjono, “How does #jastip work in ASEAN largest economy?” The Jakarta Globe, September 1, 2017 available at http://www.globalindonesianvoices. com/31052/how-does-jastip-work-in-asean-largest-economy/. 82 Mawa Kresna, “Take advantage of foreign jastip” (Bahasa), Tirto.id, October 25, 2017 available at https://tirto.id/raup-untung-dari-jastip-luar-negeri-cyZ4. 83 Fake news is a major problem—not only, however—in Indonesia and Tirto.id is one of the most reliable news sites, with certification from the Independent Fact Checking Network. It recently partnered with Facebook to help with the problem of fake news relayed through the social media site. See Yenny Yusra, “Facebook partners with Tirto.id to introduce third party fact checking feature,” April 3, 2018 available at https://dailysocial.id/post/facebook-partners-with-tirto-id-to-introduce-third-partyfact-checking-feature. 84 Mawa Kresna, “Jastip dominates online shopping,” Tirto.id, October 25, 2017 available at https://tirto.id/jastip-melawan-dominasi-olshop-cyZ5. 85 Indonesia has a very high rate of tax evasion, but the most worrying aspect of this is the link with money laundering. The effort to crack down on tax evasion by tracking all credit card transactions is also inducing people to rely more greatly on cash transactions. See Reuters, “Tax evasion crackdown pushing Indonesians back to cash from credit cards,” The Strait Times, May 30, 2016 available at https:// www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/tax-evasion-crackdown-pushingindonesians-back-to-cash-from-credit-cards. 86 Andini Aprillana, “Jastip. New profitable business opportunities and tips” (in Bahasa), Beauty Journal, November 6, 2017 available at https://journal.sociolla. com/lifestyle/guide-lifestyle/bisnis-jastip/. See also Devina Ellora, “How millennials can supplement their income” (in Bahasa), Beauty Journal, May 17, 2018 available at https://journal.sociolla.com/lifestyle/cara-mencari-penghasilan-tambahan-alamillennial/.

Chapter 6 1

Mair 2018, 79. Mair goes on to say that fashion has become so ubiquitous that it is often only the material used that provides a way for differentiating between high fashion garments and cheaper versions, and thus we are now witnessing an “inconspicuous consumption” of fashion, giving the example of brand-new “distressed” jeans. See Mair 2018, 80.

2

See Kawamura 2018, 94–5.

3

See Craik 1993.

4

The use of the term “classical” to refer to the period between the seventh and fourteenth centuries CE is extremely widespread and convenient shorthand, but it remains controversial, as it is a very clear imposition of European categories onto Indonesian and more generally, Southeast Asian history. See Aung-Thwin, 1995, 90, “The study of ‘classical’ Southeast Asia has developed impressively . . . the assumptions underlying that study—the ‘intellectual baggage’—remain packed in the ‘suitcases’ of Orientalism.”

5

Creese 2004, 58–9; 156.

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6

See Jha 2016 on colorism and the global beauty industry. See also Radha Wahyuwidayat, “Colourism in South and South-East Asia,” Greenleft Weekly, April 29, 2016 available at https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/colourism-southand-south-east-asia and Fia Hamid Walker, “How will the Dutch study to 45–49 benefit average Indonesians?” Histori Bersama, February 2, 2018 available at http://historibersama.com/how-will-the-dutch-study-to-45-49-benefit-averageindonesians-the-jakarta-post/.

7

In her book, Pesona ‘Barat’: Analisa Kritis-Historis tentang Kesadaran Warna Kulit di Indonesia ( officially translated as “The Allure of Whiteness: An analysis on skin colour consciousness in Indonesia”), citing Tri, Vissa Ita Yulianto explains that in Indonesia the earlier appreciation for a pale golden skin was transformed into a desire for a white skin, through the soap advertisements and the introduction of whitening creams by brands such a Mustika Ratu and Sari Ayu. The time of this shift is identified as being around the mid-1980s, marking a more significant Western influence in defining Indonesian beauty. (Tri in Ita Yulianto, 2007: xii). Ita Yulianto’s blog, Ginonjing weblog, also has an interesting post on the same topic “Cantik Itu Putih dan Berwajah Indo?” (Is the face of beauty white and Indo?) discussing, on the trail of the book, the importance of decolonization as an inner process, with reference to the “invisible norm” of Frantz Fanon, 1986. Blogpost available at https://ginonjing.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/cantik-itu-putih-dan-berwajah-indo/.

8

I am all too aware of the stereotyping that goes on in global advertising, as I am often cast as an old lady, my “playing age” going up to seventy-five with the right kind of makeup and styling aimed at making me look older, and of course, posture and gait. In 2015 I had the opportunity to interview “Rany,” a production company executive in Jakarta. The company specializes in commercial and corporate videos for TV and online consumption. They occasionally cast in-house though it is more common to rely on a casting director and a range of talent agencies. We talked about beauty requirements and how important it is for the girls who play the heroines in beauty commercials to have a clear, fair skin and to be generally Indonesian looking but not of a particular Indonesian ethnicity, the latter should not be obvious. They tend to be between seventeen and twenty-one-years old, this is the age range for “young people.” Mums are between the age of twenty-five and thirty-five, they are again quite fair and relatively good looking but not overly so. The key word is aspirational middle-class. Older women playing the role of grandmothers can be plump and bespectacled. “Rany” also hinted at jilbab being used with greater frequency than in the past, especially when representing older women.

9

Frisa 2018, 131–2, my translation.

10 There is a sizable body of literature on modeling. Several books are written by insiders, especially former models, giving autobiographical accounts of their careers or proffering advice on how to model, and can be extremely helpful to anyone thinking of getting started, e.g. the 2009 guide on how to walk the runway by “Miss J” Alexander Jenkins, catwalk trainer of supermodels such as Naomi Campbell, or Anita De Bauch 2015 on how to make it as a freelance model without being represented by an agency, and the more recent guide on how to get into fashion by supermodel Eunice Olumide, 2018. There are also countless coffee table books with many beautiful photographs of famous models, curated by the models themselves, which contribute to the mystique of the supermodel, e.g. Kate Moss 1997, Naomi Campbell 2001, or Vera von Lehndorf’s (Veruschka) unseen photos edited by Johnny

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Moncada et al. 2014. Academic studies of modeling tend to be in English and focused almost entirely on the model industry in the Anglo-American world, taken as paradigmatic. They range, in no particular order, from a chapter in Craik 1993; to Evans 2013, a historical account of modernism and fashion shows in the early twentieth century with ample discussion of models; to Entwistle 2009 discussing models as part of the aesthetic economy of fashion; to the edited essay collection by Entwistle and Wissinger 2013 with a range of contributions, but still focused almost entirely (with a couple of exceptions) on fashion modeling in the West despite the global outlook; to Sadre-Orafai 2016, a short ethnographic account of her own booker’s experience; to Mears 2011 ethnography of modeling, through her own participation as a model in New York and London; and finally Wissinger 2015 also draws on her short-lived modeling experience and focuses on models’ work as glamor labor, reiterating a concern with the model industry as known in the US. Other less-known contributions tend to look at modeling as a global industry, as indeed it is, but also bring out the nuances of a different experience in contexts other than New York or London. Such is Soley-Beltran’s 2015 account (in Spanish) intermingling the personal and the academic perspective, discussing growing up in post-Franco’s Spain and becoming a top model of the 1980s also in Spain, and drawing on her sociological training and her interest in deconstructing “model glamour”—she has also given a TED talk (in English) focused on gender politics “Change the Model!” July 30, 2015 available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13262vdldzY. Similarly, Gabriele Monti 2016 (in Italian) looks at Italian models from the 1950s onwards and their role in defining the visual culture of modeling in Italy and internationally. A useful account is also that of Ben Barry 2008, written by a (then) young Canadian model agent who played a pivotal role in campaigning for diversity in fashion. Finally, Italian iconic model, academic, and feminist fashion activist Benedetta Barzini wrote in 1987 not only about her own modeling experience in 1960s New York, but also about style, in an effort to subvert given notions of beauty and elegance in relation to women and their self-image, long before the exploration of fashion, models, style, and self-identity attracted scholarly attention. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it confirms that the study of models and modeling is indeed a burgeoning sub-field of fashion studies, though as usual dominated by Anglo-American scholarship. I have also contributed to this emerging field of enquiry, as can be seen in my list of print and online publications at https://independentresearcher.academia.edu/ AlessandraBLopezyRoyo. 11 For Chasing Beauty, which has interviews with aspiring and established models, see https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261389/; for Timeless Beauty about a newer cohort of “atypical” models, see https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7357322/?ref_=nv_sr_1. 12 Modeling is one of the very few professions where women command fees much higher than men. See Mears 2011, 212. 13 See Hadley Freeman, “Sexual abuse of models is fashion’s dirty secret,” September 9, 2009 available at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/sep/09/ hadley-freeman-sexual-abuse-models, and more recently, Tamsin Blanchard, “Edie Campbell says fashion world complicit in abuse of models,” November 9, 2017 available at https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/nov/09/edie-campbell-saysfashion-world-complicit-in-abuse-of-models. Franklin has written several articles concerning Terry Richardson, she was not afraid of naming and shaming. See Franklin’s website for a collection of all her articles about Richardson, available at

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https://franklinonfashion.com/write/ including her most recent Op-Ed for BoF, November 10, 2017. 14 See BoF, “Should the modelling industry be regulated?” September 14, 2015 available at https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/voices/discussions/ should-the-modelling-industry-be-regulated/op-ed-changes-to-the-law-would-stopthe-exploitation-of-models. 15 Many model agencies will go along with clients’ whims and the erratic arrangements of production companies, guilty of eating up most of a shoot budget, and will accept unpaid work for their models only for the sake of having them featured, or they might encourage models to take a garment in lieu of payment, as indeed happened to a London model I am acquainted with who appeared in a jeans commercial for a global brand, with worldwide exposure, and all she was given was a pair of jeans. I have also been, in the past, short-changed by model agencies that would suddenly raise their commission if the job was for a top client and over a certain threshold. Agencies will try to undercut each other by offering the same models, often on their books without an exclusive contract, at a lower fee than a competitor. To top it all up it is usual for production companies, if they are unable to shoot booked talent, for whatever reason, not to pay the buy-out. The clause “if not appearing in the final cut” is often used in such cases, and it is binding. The result is considerable loss of earnings for the models/talent involved and lack of kudos, as they cannot claim to have been in a particular campaign, even though they may have spent the day on location fully made up waiting to be filmed. 16 In the UK there is Equity, the union of performing artists and creatives, with a model division, which, however, is not overwhelmed with membership applications. In the US there is no trade union as such but the Model Alliance was established in 2012 by Sara Ziff to give models a point of reference and to campaign for models’ well-being on all fronts. 17 Back in 2015 I wrote a blog post on models in Indonesia to which I linked an article written by an Australian model who had worked in Bali and who was very frank about the sleaziness associated with modeling on the island. She gave several juicy details of financial exploitation and hinted at sexual exploitation too. Unfortunately, that article entitled “High Noon in Bali’s Modelling Maelstrom” is no longer available on the web and cannot be found, not even using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My blog post “From Jakarta #6,” October 16, 2015 is available here https://alex-therealdoesnoteffaceitself.blogspot.com/2015/10/from-jakarta-6.html. 18 See Jess Cartner-Morley, “The Naomissance is upon us: Naomi Campbell returns to the top of the fashion world,” The Guardian, October 16, 2017 available at https:// www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/oct/16/naomi-campbell-naomissance-top-offashion-world. It is worth pointing out that despite all her success, Naomi Campbell never fronted a global beauty campaign until 2019. She remains the token black model par excellence. 19 Mair 2018, 64. 20 See Aarti Olivia, “Here’s why the body positive movement hasn’t made it to Asia,” Wear Your Voice. Intersectional feminist media, December 7, 2015 available at https://wearyourvoicemag.com/body-politics/body-image-body-positive-movementsoutheast-asia-asia-pacific and also Crystal Tai, “For plus-size Asian women, body positivity still has a long way to go . . .” February 4, 2018 available at

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https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-luxury/article/2131679/plus-size-asianwomen-body-positivity-still-has-long-way-go. As for acceptance of older women’s gray hair, usually regarded as most unsightly in Asia, a recent article in The Strait Times Singapore reveals that in Japan more older women are embracing their gray. See Editorial Team, “More older women in Japan embracing grey hair amid changing notion of beauty,” February 28, 2017, The Strait Times Asia section, available at https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/more-older-women-in-japan-embracinggrey-hair-as-notion-of-beauty-and-fashion-evolves?&utm_source=facebook&utm_ medium=social-media&utm_campaign=addtoany. 21 Mears 2013 and Vasudev 2012. 22 “The Struggles of Being a Model,” VFFC 2016, available at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=eSvWLpdDRwE (Episode one) and https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vV5u8HQK-SE (Episode two) and also https://qubicle.id/story/thestruggles-of-being-a-model-eps-3-bully-survivors (Episode three). Video films about modeling are, as mentioned earlier, not new. Sara Ziff, founder of the Model Alliance in New York, made a highly praised one in 2009, Picture me: A model diary, a series of interviews with models in which their fragility and their problems, and also their abuse, are highlighted. As for my own experience of scorn it was never directed at me personally but during my talk on diversity in fashion at ID.FW18, I showed an excerpt of a documentary film featuring disabled international model Jack Eyres, at which point some members of the audience began giggling non-stop as they found the idea of a disabled model totally ridiculous, as one of them candidly told me afterwards. 23 Aesthetic labor is what scholars call the work of models, a term referring to work that “involves the simultaneous manufacture of an appropriate aesthetic surface” and the imperative “to project and produce” a particular “self” in the form of “personality,” see Mears, 2013, 138, who cites Entwistle and Wissinger 2006. 24 See Elaine YJ Lee, “Why do so many Asian brands hire white models?” in Highsnobiety, May 2, 2016 available at https://www.highsnobiety.com/2016/05/02/ asian-fashion-brands-white-models/. 25 However, many European and American agencies might then remove references to Asian clients—unless they are extremely high profile—in their models’ portfolio, as modeling in Asia is generally not highly regarded, not a real “achievement,” precisely because East and Southeast Asia are seen as training grounds. See Vanessa Helmer, “How to get signed to a modeling agency in Asia,” The Balance Careers, May 3, 2018 available at https://www.thebalancecareers.com/how-to-get-signed-tomodeling-agency-in-asia-2379426. 26 With septuagenarian, white-haired Maye Musk on the cover of Vogue Korea of July 2017, one can predict it will not be too long. I also spotted other signs, for example, Elle India had 72-year-old Loulou van Damme in its July 2016 issue, though not on the cover. Even on the curvy front I have spotted some developments. Since 2014, the modeling school, doubling up as modeling agency, Big Beauty Model Management, has been active in Jakarta promoting and representing curvy women. I was not able to interview the owner, the school/agency has a registered address in Jakarta Selatan but it does not have a website, only a Facebook presence. I never saw any curvy models on the runway or in magazines while in Indonesia—there are of course actors of all sizes portraying “real people” in ads but they are not models and do not have to conform to “beauty standards.” Curvy celebrities do not count,

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187

they are of course photographed very often, but they too are not models as such, though the boundary between the two categories can at times be rather porous, it depends on the celebrity. With the discussions going on in online forums and in some magazines, and the awareness of the body positivity movement at international level, I would not be surprised if things might rapidly change to accommodate these newer trends. At the IPMI Trend Show 2019, in November 2018, there were older models, such as Sarita Thaib and the “Ghea” twins, Amanda and Janna, and a few shorter, curvier models, but the latter were celebrities and muses rather than professional models, including among them a ballerina, Fifi Sijangga, CEO of Indonesia Dance Company. See the video available at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=MlajkjS3MYU . 27 Perception of black people in Indonesia as in other parts of Asia is racist. See for example Chriss Bodenner, “Even the darker-skinned Indonesians point and laugh,” The Atlantic, October 11, 2016 available at https://www.theatlantic.com/ notes/2016/10/indonesia/503372/. See also Russell 1991 on the black other in Japanese mass culture. 28 See “From Jakarta #6,” October 16, 2015 available at https://alextherealdoesnoteffaceitself.blogspot.com/2015/10/from-jakarta-6.html. 29 See Sylviana Hamdani, “Top Indonesian Designer Launches Flash Modeling School,” Jakarta Globe, November 3, 2015 available at http://jakartaglobe.id/features/ top-indonesian-designer-launches-flash-modeling-school/. 30 The article by Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, “Chasing the quintessential Indonesian beauty,” The Jakarta Post, September 21, 2014 available at http://www. thejakartapost.com/news/2014/09/21/chasing-quintessential-indonesian-beauty. html ostensibly makes the point that greater diversity is now being embraced in Indonesia in terms of beauty standards, though on careful reading it does point to the endurance of the fair-skinned type, no matter what the ethnicity might be. 31 Indonesian ethnicities tend to have a smaller physique than that of Caucasians or Africans. Height in humans is partly genetic, partly due to nutrition and the environment, and is also constantly changing through generations. See Floud et al., 2011 for the link between height and nutrition. 32 The height rule was only introduced in the 1970s, models’ height varied considerably before then. The last bastion of body discrimination is the Victoria’s Secret annual lingerie show where models must be a minimum 5'9" in height (and it keeps on increasing), must be slender, and gym trained. Victoria’s Secret has come under fire for not including curvy, transgender, or petite models, even though lingerie modeling has often been the preserve of petite models. French model Laetitia Casta was at some point one of the Angels but her contract was not renewed, presumably because of her lack of height, even though the official reason was that she quit because she is “too much of a rebel.” Victoria’s Secret show is not favored by millennials and is regarded as anachronistic and profoundly anti-women. It is also the case that sales for the brand have gone down as it no longer reflects contemporary women’s aspirations and lifestyle choices. See Jenny Stevens, “Starvation diets, obsessive training and no plus-size models: Victoria’s Secret sells a dangerous fantasy,” The Guardian, November 22, 2018 available at https://www.theguardian. com/lifeandstyle/2018/nov/22/victorias-secret-show-angels-lingerie. 33 It has always been a tendency for fashion magazines to feature A-listers and mega celebrities on their cover, alternating with professional models.

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34 Lack of height is deemed to be a considerable source of psychological problems and popular psychology articles on this topic abound. They can be found in Indonesian magazines too. Though it is not talked about much, lack of height for both men and women does seem to have become an issue in Indonesia, with reports of consumption of dubious pills to stimulate growth. See Ayunda Nurvitasari, “Beyond the demands for ‘Ideal Beauty’,” Magdalene, March 3, 2016 available at https://magdalene.co/news-718-beyond-the-demands-for-%E2%80%9Cidealbeauty%E2%80%9D.html. In shopping malls, one will often see height-increasing elevator shoes for men (and for women too, especially trainers). Indonesian women tend to wear high heels a lot and at a fashion show one will often find women in the audience wearing the highest possible heels or platform shoes, to compensate for their perceived lack of height. This is not a practice found in Indonesia alone, however. See Hadley Freeman, “Are high heels back? No, it’s just London Fashion Week,” The Guardian, February 14, 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/ 2018/feb/14/are-high-heels-back-no-its-just-london-fashion-week. 35 It was quite normal until a decade or so ago for agencies in Europe or America to use very young models for grown-up fashion, with girls signed by agencies at the age of thirteen, not as child models but to model womenswear. However, there has been strong opposition to this and these days models below the age of sixteen are not allowed on the runways of the major fashion capitals. British writer Rosalind Jana, who still occasionally models, and curates a sophisticated Instagram feed, recounts being scouted at age thirteen, when she was not fully developed and was as flat chested and as tall as designers liked. Later she continued to be tall but filled up, thus modeling became more difficult as she was no longer a coat hanger, though not a plus size. See http://www.rosalindjana.com/p/about-me.html. In 2011, Vogue France had a fashion editorial with a ten-year-old girl, Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau, dressed up like a grown-up woman and heavily made up. This caused quite a controversy, see Carole Cadwalladr, “Vogue is not a magazine for children,” The Guardian, August 7, 2011 available at https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2011/aug/07/vogue-not-for-children and also the blog post by Natalie Hannan, “Cadeaux controversy – a fashion faux pas,” March 23, 2014 available at https://nataliehannan.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/cadeauxcontroversy/. 36 JIM Models (Jakarta International Model Management) was founded by Atep Ahmad, Angga Irawan, and Rudy Buntharan in 2006. Initially they represented bule models (foreign models) but later took the decision to focus on Indonesian talent. It is an agency that represents a variety of talent, including commercial actor/models and even some influencers. A video about JIM Models as a brand is available here: https://brandadventureindonesia.com/video/jim-models-top-mind-brand-meraihbintang/ and discusses branding in the field of modeling and talent management. As modeling is a very young profession in Indonesia, many agencies are keen to dissociate themselves from the “cowboys” in a field in which there are, in Indonesia as elsewhere, plenty of opportunities for exploitation and abuse. 37 I have visited OQ Modelling School in Jakarta. Asokawati accepts children and adults, and the school is more like a grooming school, not everyone takes up modeling as a profession when they complete the training. There is also a model agency operating from within the school. A number of hijab-wearing models have been trained at OQ, who have launched hijab-clad models in Indonesia and represent a few. See also Tata Lukmanika, “You can be a model Muslimah,” blog

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post of December 2, 2015 available at http://howtobeamodelmuslimah.blogspot. com/2015/12/assalamualaikum.html. 38 See Ika Krismantari, “Where is Woman in Indonesian politics?” The Jakarta Post, May 4, 2015 available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/05/04/ where-woman-indonesian-politics.html. 39 See the interview (in Bahasa) by Daud Yusof aired on July 12, 2012 on Suria TV available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8avtsxy3eg. 40 Parker 2015, 4. 41 Parker 2015, 5. 42 Koda, 2009, 12–13. 43 Laura Feinstein, “The Devolution of the Model as Muse Fantasy,” Flavorwire, May 9, 2009 available at http://flavorwire.com/21893/the-devolution-of-the-model-as-muse. 44 There is a name for this, “fashtivism” (fashion activism). See Verger 2018 for an analysis of UK “fashtivism” and its representation in the media from 2011 to 2017. 45 Hari Nef as quoted by Shon Feye, “Hari Nef is not your poster girl” in Dazed, October 11, 2016 available at http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/33287/1/ hari-nef-transparent-dazed-25-freedom-fashion. I had an opportunity to work with Hari Nef in the Agender fashion film for Selfridges in 2015 see https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=jmMdBhNFxVA . I also met Mahalia Handley with whom I shared an episode of The Conversation on BBC World Service March 16, 2017 available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04wnh8w#play. 46 Asmara Wreksono listed in 2016 the top influencers, acknowledging that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find influencers who are not sponsored: “they are the ones on every local and international beauty brand list, hence their tastemaker status.” They are: Harumi Sudrajat, Minyo, Stella Lee, Cheryl Raissa (“from the hijabi front”), Cut Auzola Azalia, Lizzie Parra, Janine Intasari, Titan Tyra, Andra Alodita (also a photographer), Sunny Dahye, who is in fact Korean. Links to their insta profiles and blogs are in the article. See Asmara Wreksono, “Top 10 beauty influencers that we love,” The Jakarta Post, May 11, 2016 available at http://www.thejakartapost.com/ life/2016/05/11/top-10-beauty-influencers-that-we-love.html. Interestingly, several of these women are also involved in cosplay (aka costume play), a subculture of people who dress up in different costumes (fictional character, science fiction and fandom, historical periods) and are then photographed in character. There are competitions and cosplayers keep in touch through online groups and newsletters. The movement began in Japan in the 1980s and spread worldwide. For a study of cosplaying, which has strong links with fashion, see Orsini 2015, Lunning 2016. For surgery as subversion see Harris-Moore 2016, especially Chapter six, “Resistant bodies and the politics of perfection” (ebook, no page number). 47 Hannah Al Rashid is a rising star of Indonesian cinema. On my last visit to Jakarta in November 2018, she was on all the digital billboards of the city, showing clips from her latest movie. She has been on the cover of several magazines, from Grazia Indonesia to Prestige and, as we saw earlier, she inspired Martha Nuttall’s collection for the contemporary working woman, about all of which she is quite blasé, though she is fully aware of being, potentially and in actuality, a role model for contemporary Indonesian women. Now a UN SDG mover, she is passionate about changing the status quo and empowering women, and as an activist she has written for Magdalene, for The Jakarta Post, given countless interviews and has been using her

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Instagram (with the descriptor “A Child of all Nations,” a reference to writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer) for advocacy. On her YouTube channel she regularly uploads series of short videos through which she reflects on specific events—most notably the videoseries #16daysofactivism, but also #100daysofHannah. Hannah Al Rashid is also a practitioner of pencak silat, a martial art from the archipelago, trained to international competition standards. Ajeng Dewi Svastiari, on the other hand, is a stylist, a fashion director, an occasional photographic model, a fashion activist, and an artist. She has co-directed and also starred in fashion films, has dressed many celebrities, and has worked closely with designer Tri Handoko, for whom she acts as fashion director and for whom she is often a muse. She also teaches fashion courses at the Raffles Institute in Jakarta. She regularly holds workshops about styling, discussing the dark side of fashion (consumerism, garment waste), and encouraging a less wasteful approach to clothes. 48 See Gwilt 2014, 56 for a discussion of the link between emotion and fabrics. 49 Hannah Al Rashid, “I was told I was fat and lost my job. A TV host speaks up,” October 27, 2015 Rappler English edn available at https://www.rappler.com/world/regions/ asia-pacific/indonesia/bahasa/englishedition/110810-fat-weight-issues-showbiz. 50 See Carla Bianpoen, “Indonesian Women Artists: Coming into Their Own,” Mutual Art, July/August 2009 available at https://www.mutualart.com/Article/IndonesianWomen-Artists--Coming-into-Th/6F4009D4B3FB688C. 51 Granata 2016, 1–2. 52 See Svastiari’s Infinite Playlist, A fashion film by Ajeng Svastiari and Joey Christian 2017 available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ysRLelThqA. 53 Jessica Djafar, “The fashion horror Ajeng Svastiari,” Inhype, September 11, 2015 available at http://inhype.com/read/the-fashion-horror-ajeng-swastiari. 54 Dirgantoro 2017, 17. 55 Dirgantoro 2017, 27. 56 Buckley and Clark 2012, 28. 57 Buckley and Clark 2012, 23. 58 Luvaas 2016, Minh-ha T. Pham 2015. 59 Fashion journalist and commentator Sylviana Hamdani has written profusely on style and the Indonesian woman for the Jakarta Globe and other publications, and now also through her blog Sylviana says, available at https://sylvianahamdani.wordpress.com/. 60 Joanne Entwistle, “The everyday creative activity of clothing ourselves,” Culture Matters, March 21, 2017 available at https://culturematters.org.uk/index.php/culture/ clothing-fashion/item/2486-the-everyday-creative-activity-of-clothing-ourselves. 61 See Febrina Anindita, “Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem” Whiteboard Journal, February 20, 2017 available at https://www.whiteboardjournal.com/focus/ideas/gudangsarinah-ekosistem/. 62 Not only in Indonesia. The art of stitching is definitely back as the success of the TV programme “The Great British Sewing Bee” (2013) subsequently franchised to nine countries, including Australia, has demonstrated. 63 See Anisa Melur Maulani, “Kostoom from Indonesian startup aims to be the uber of dressmaking,” e-27, 10, 2016 available at https://e27.co/tailored-service-newindonesian-startup-uber-dress-making-20160310/.

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64 I am a ballet die-hard and wherever I am in the world, if I can, I join a ballet class. I also follow the online taught body conditioning method, based on ballet, known as Sleektechnique, devised by ballet professionals Victoria Marr and Felicity Swan. Here I should add that it always comes as a surprise to people outside Indonesia to know that there are ballet schools in Indonesian cities. There have actually been ballet schools in Jakarta since at least the 1940s. Generally, ballet in Indonesia has received very little attention in the international scholarship, see, however, Miettinen 2015, 49. 65 In particular the already mentioned chapter in Bucar 2017, 74–121, on jilbab-wearing women in Yogyakarta giving an account of her research carried out in 2011.

Epilogue 1

Despite not focusing on the TV/fashion relationship, I have, however, crossreferenced, in Chapter four, the Fashion TV channels, as they constitute a very specific type of broadcasting, often only available online through live streaming.

2

See Cohen 2006, 1–27.

3

See my blog post, “From Jakarta #7,” October 22, 2015 available at https://alextherealdoesnoteffaceitself.blogspot.com/2015/10/from-jakarta-7.html?zx= 297909d4ed2ae5fc.

4

See also Hobart and Fox 2008 for entertainment TV in Indonesia and Heryanto 2013.

5

Invernizzi Tettoni 1997. For photo-anthologies see for example Wubin 2016.

6

See Arryo, “Ten talented Indonesian photographers to keep your eye on,” Indonesia Tatler, March 22, 2017 available at https://indonesiatatler.com/society/10-talentedindonesian-photographers-to-keep-your-eye-on.

7

Luvaas 2014.

8

Staying in Style, “Fashion Photography with Sally Ann and Emily May,” Jakarta Now! July 5, 2017 available at http://nowjakarta.co.id/fashion-photography-with-sally-annand-emily-may.

9

Thinking through fashion is the title of a book on fashion theory by Rocamora and Smelik 2016. I am here borrowing the phrase.

10 Entwistle 2016, 280–2. 11 Negrin 2016, 130. 12 Smelik as quoted by Miller 2016, 55. See Scott 2008 for a discussion of Lacan’s 1964 seminars in which he elaborates on the gaze as objet petit a. 13 Elizabeth Pisani, “ ‘Biggest invisible thing on earth?’ – It’s called Indonesia, and it’s waking up,” The Guardian, November 21, 2016 available at https://www. theguardian.com/cities/2016/nov/21/biggest-invisible-thing-on-earth-indonesiawaking-up. 14 Daniel Miller as quoted by Rocamora and Smelik 2016, 14. For a discussion of sensory pleasure and taste in fashion, food, and art see Vercelloni 2016. 15 Eco 2015, 222.

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NOTES

16 Wolf 1992. 17 Etcoff 1999, 204. I have also written a blog post about Nancy Etcoff’s analysis of beauty in response to Naomi Wolf’s celebrated account and Intan Febriani interviewed me about it for her article published by Magdalene. See “Beauty: nature versus nurture,” January 21, 2018 available at https://alex-therealdoesnoteffaceitself. blogspot.com/2018/01/beauty-nature-vs-nurture.html and also Intan Febriani, “Breaking the taboo surrounding older women: a conversation with Alex Bruni,” Magdalene, June 27, 2018 available at https://magdalene.co/news-1787-breakingthe-taboo-surrounding-older-women-a-conversation-with-alex-bruni.html (Bruni is the surname I am known by as a model, my stage name, my real one being quite a mouthful). 18 Reinharz 1997, 18; 3.

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204

INDEX

Abidin, Selma, 97, 135 Aboah, Adwoa 137 Absolutely Fabulous, 98 Accademia Koefia, 32, 45 accessories, xvii, 9, 11, 26, 51, 56, 90–1, 115–17 Aden, Halima, 137 Admodirdjo, Prajudi, 15 Advanced Style, 98 age, xix, xxii, xxiii, 9, 18, 28–9, 47, 87, 89–90, 92, 95, 98–9, 112 aging, xxvii, 88–9, 135 agency, 118, 127 Ahok, Purnama Tjahaja Basuki, 18 Ahyar, Mel, 14 AI (Artificial Intelligence), 117, 122 Alibaba, 119, 122 Alisjahbana, Pia, 26, 27 Alisjahbana, Svida, 25–7, 29–30, 92, 94–5, 134 Alm, Sujanto Cynthia, 85 Al Rashid, Hannah 57, 99–100, 138, 140, 189 n.47 alta moda, 32, 41 Alun-Alun (department store), 114 alun-alun, 38 alus, 49 Amazon, 122 Apfel, Iris, 98 apparel, xviii, 15–16, 41, 52, 54 APPMI, 16–17, 24, 29–30, 41, 52, 96 Arahmaiani, 138 arisan, ladies 116–17, 127 Arjunawiwaha, 128 Arnada, Erwin, 97 Asia’s Next Top Model, 33, 134–5 Asian Couture Federation, 47

Asmarani, Devi, 101–2 Asokawati, Okky, 32, 93, 134–5 Australian Aid Programme, 95 autoethnographic, 132 autoethnography, xxxiii Avantie, Anne, 38, 135 Ay, Toe Christine, 139 Bahasa, campur, xxvii Indonesia, xxi, xxv, xxvii, 7, 26, 30, 32, 55, 86–7, 90, 101, 103, 105 Bali, xxxi, 5, 10–11, 30, 33, 37, 41–2, 44, 55–7, 110, 19, 132, 140, 144 Balinese, 4–5, 10, 25, 32, 37–8, 41–2, 51, 55, 57, 115, 128, 144 Bank Central Asia (BCA), 110 Banks, Tyra, 29, 33 Basuki, Fira, 96 Batak, 45 Batavia, 6 (see also Jakarta and Djakarta) batik, xvii, xxi, xxvii, 6–8, 10–16, 32, 34, 41–2, 49, 51–3, 86, 147 cap, 7, 10, 12 print, 12 tulis, 10, 14 Batik Indonesia Project, 8, 10, 13 beauty, concepts of, xxiii, xxvii, 87, 128, 135, 137, 140, 147 discourse(s), xxiv–xxv, xxxii, 127 features, xxi, 86–8, 90, 94, 101 industry, 93, 102 Javanese ideal, 128, 133 Muslim, 135 pageant(s), 102, 134, 136 photography, 88, 205

206

products, 104 professional, 137 shoots, xvii in simplicity, 56 standards, xxiii–xxiv, xxxii, 100–1, 127–8, 131, 134, 137–8, 146 statements, 98 stereotype(s), 131 and style, xxxi–xxxii, 85, 88–9, 91, 99–101, 105, 111–12, 138, 143–4 (see also under style) treatments, 119 bedhaya, 4 Beijing, 33 BEKRAF, 27, 35 Bershka, 112 Berrybenka, 121–2 Biasa, 41, 55–6 Blibli, 119–20 Binus Northumbria, 29 Biyan, see Wanaatmadja, Biyan bloggers, xxi, xxvi, xxxii, 24, 88, 101–5, 117, 140 (see also vloggers) body, xvii, xxvii, xxxii, 5, 7, 9, 13, 27, 45, 54, 56, 97–8, 127–9, 132, 139, 146–7 activist, 97, 138 diversity, xxiii, 131 image, xxiv, xxvii, 89, 99, 128, 138 positivity, xxiii–xxiv, xxviii, 29, 101, 131, 138, 151 n.25 Borobudur, xx, 4, 32, 52 Breschi, Emma, 97 Brightspot Market, xx, 57, 123 The British Council, 27 Budihardjo, Satrio, 16 Budihardjo, Susan, 47 burqa, 32 busana muslim, xxv, xxxi, 18, 27, 29, 31, 42–3, 45, 47, 53, 59–60, 87, 91, 4, 117, 121, 123, 141–2, 147 Business of Fashion (BoF), xviii, 92 Campbell, Naomi, 98 candi, see temples Carmanita, 12, 25, 34 (see also Mambo, Carmanita) Casati-Stampa, Luisa, 47 (see also La Divina Marchesa)

INDEX

celebrity (-ties), xxvi, xxxii, 24–5, 45, 71, 84, 99, 128, 130–2, 134, 140–1, 144 censorship, 12, 18, 95, 139 self-, 139 Chanel, Coco, 53 Maison, 37, 90, 116–17 Charisma, Ali, 57 Chasing Beauty, 129 chic, 14, 16, 32, 47–8, 55, 135 boho-, 41, 44 ethnic-, 44–5, 47 Chinese, xxiii, 5–8, 10–12, 18, 46–7, 85, 155 peranakan, 6, 8 Chiuri, Maria Grazia, 100 Christensen, Helena, 98 christian, 18, 45, minority, 18 Christianity, 136 Ciputra, Drina, 135 Clara. Proudly Indonesia, 87 clothes, xxi, xxvii, xxxii, 6, 9, 12, 16, 46, 52, 56–7, 92, 134 appropriate, 50 batik, 14 body redefined by, 129 boutique, 91 cheap, 115 consumption, xvii as costumes, 38, 41 designer, 24, 31, 34, 39, 41, 119 edgy, 60 ergonomic, 49 exhibitions, 36 fitted, 45 functionality in, 49 glamorous, 48 high-quality, 14, 57, 116 luxurious, 60 “Made in Indonesia”, 98 making, 7, 44, 57 minimalism, minimalist, 42, 50–1 modeling, 45, 137 (see also modeling) preloved, 141 for “real women”, xiii, 57 (see also under women) as second skin, 138, 146, 148 subversive, 51

INDEX

as uniforms, 41, 54 (see also uniform) wearers of, 127 working, 141 Coast, 106 Cohen, Seth Ari, 98 colonialism, 128 color, of skin, xxvii, 6, 128, 133 colorism, 128 communism, 11 Condé Nast, 89, 92 conglomeration, 86, 96, 100, 105 conservatism, xxv, 102 consumption, xvii, xxvi, xxxii, 61, 86–7, 109, 111–12, 114, 118, 127, 141 Cosmopolitan (Kosmopolitan), 85, 95–6 cosmopolitan, artist community, 41, 44 clientele, 55 consumer, 13 identity, 86 (see also under identity) imagination, 47 lifestyle, 91, 104 (see also lifestyle) outlook, 44 readership, 94 cosmopolitanism, 86, 99–100 Crawford, Cindy, 98 culture (s), xx, xxviii, 6, 24, 31–2, 48, 53, 99 celebrity, 105, 136 (see also celebrities) colonial, 8 contemporary, xxix, 108 everyday, 140 fashion as expression of, xxviii (see also under fashion) Indonesian, 12, 14, 16, 31, 46, 48 Islamic (Muslim) 8, 10 Javanese, 10, 11, 13, 49 mall, 127 national, xxx, 3, 8, 10, 13–14 popular, 136 Roman, 136 visual, xviii, xxix Dauhan, Rama, 116 design(s), xiii, xvii, xxix, xxii, xxvi–xxvii, xxxi, 10, 14–15, 26, 29, 32, 34, 36–7, 42–3, 47, 49–53, 56–7, 91, 113, 129, 139

207

eco-, xxvii ecological, 41 designers, xiii, xvii–xix, xx–xxi, xxiv–xxvi, xxxi, 10, 12, 14–17, 23–37, 41–3, 45–8, 49–55, 56–60, 90–2, 103–4, 114, 116–17 Dewi, 26, 30, 47, 87–92, 94, 98, 100, 135, 144 The Dharmawangsa, 34 Dharsono, Harry, 42 Dharsono, Poppy, xxiii, 16–17, 24, 30–2, 52, 93 Diani, Hera, 101 digital, access, 119 brand, 103 businesses, 119 connectivity, 86 hyper-, 87 magazine, 101 (see also under magazines) media, 144 photography, 139, 145 platforms, 86 print, printing 44 sphere, xxxii technology, 34 DFW (Digital Fashion Week) 34 digitalization, 86, 95, 118, 122 Dimitri, Ayla, 104–5, 134 Dior, 100, 112 Diponegoro War, 6 Pangeran, 155 n.23 diversity, xxiii, xxiv, xxvii, xxix, 12, 17–18, 31, 35, 38, 41, 43, 45, 87, 98, 131 body, (see under body) ethnic, 133 Djakarta, 9 (see also Jakarta) Dolce & Gabbana, 32, 86 dress, xx, xxx, xxxiii, 4, 6–8, 10–16, 18, 24, 31–2, 42–3, 48–9, 51, 54, 89, 118 colonial, 3 and fashion, xxx, 3–4 ethnic, 6, 12 European and western, xxx, 7–8, 11 Islamic, 60 local, 6

208

national, xxvii, 3, 7–8, 10, 12–13, 18, 24, 32 post-independence, 3 pre-colonial, 3, 8 traditional, xxx, 4, 7–8, 32 Dunscombe, Frances, 97 Dutch, paintings, 6 racial stratification, 128 (see also Ethical Policy) rule, 3–10 schools, 7 The Economist, 120 e-commerce, xxiv, xxxii, 34, 105, 112, 118–22, 124, 127 Elle, 85 Ellen, Martha, 41, 57–8 embroidery, 5, 7, 46, 55 Enninful, Edward, 131 entrepreneur, xxxii, 27, 32, 99, 119 ESMOD, 16, 29, 41, 57 Ethical Policy, 6 (see also under Dutch) ethnafashion, 3 ethnographic, 148 ethnography, 111 eurocentric, xxx, 137, 140 eurocentrism, xxiv, xxix exotic, 60, 90–1, 133, 144 exoticization, xxiv, xxviii, 48 exploitation, xxviii e-zine, 101 Facebook, 91, 95, 104, 119–20, 121 Farfetch, 119, 122 fashion, see also under media; see also market activism (fashtivism), 137–8, 140 activist, xix, xxi, xxiii, xxviii, 130 brands (labels), xvii, xvii, xix, xxii, 15, 17, 26, 27–9, 30–1, 33–4, 37, 41, 43, 52, 58, 60, 88, 103–14, 114, 116–17, 119, 121–3, 125 brands (luxury), xxxii, 90–1, 99, 112–15 capitals, hierarchy of, xxii, 86, 131 colonial, xxvii consumption of, xxxii, 112, 118, 127, 146

INDEX

conventional, xxiii, xxv, 42–3, 53, 121 and culture, 44 discourse, xxiv–xxv, xxvii, 85, 88, 127, 128 and everyday, xxxii, 140–3 fashion-as-art, xxvii, xxxi, 36 film(s), 50–1, 87, 139, 146, 139 global, xxi, xxiv–xxv, xxix, xxxi, xxxiii, 3, 28, 35, 43, 53, 58, 89, 105, 146 identity, 35 (see also under identity) journalism (journalist), 104, 132, 133, 144 and media, 59, 85–6, 96, 100, 103, 105, 131 models, 91, 132 (see also under model) photography, xxxiii, 13, 144–5 show(s), xxvi, 14–15, 17, 23–6, 31, 33–4, 38, 59, 87, 104, 115–17, 136, 143 street and streetwear, 42–3, 141, 145 studies, xviii, xxiv, xxviii–xxx, 3, 37, 129, 145 system, xxvi, xxvii, xxxi–xxxii, 3, 14, 18, 34, 43, 58, 105, 146, 148 theory, 191 n.9 week(s), xix–xxi, xxxi, 16, 24–9, 31, 33–8 western and non-western, xx, xxiv, 15, 44, 59 Fashion Editors Association, 85 Fashion Film Competition, 50, 132 Fashion First, 37 Fashion Forward, 27 Fashion Link, 27, 70, 123 Fashion Nation, 34, 51, 69 Fashion Scout, 27 Femina, xxiv, 26–7, 29, 85, 87, 89, 92–5, 103, 115, 134–5 Femina Group, xxvi, 23, 26–7, 29, 85–9, 93, 95 femininity, xxiv, xxxii, 9, 48, 87, 118, 127 feminism, 138–9 feminist, xxii, 87, 95, 99–101 Ferhostan, Darrell, 35, 134 Fimela, 87 Firman, Ichsan, 32, 93, 144, 163 n.27 (see also Ichsan, Firman) First Travel, 58–60

INDEX

Fourteenth Economic Policy Package, 120 franchise(s), xxxi, 85–6, 88, 92, 96, 98–99, 100, 102 (see also under magazine) Franklin, Caryn, 130 Gadis, 89 Galeries Lafayette, 114 gamelan, 14, 38, 50 Gan, Adrian, 53 Gani, Ayu 134 gaze (male), 5, 129, 146, gender, xxxi, 8, 89, 101, 136, 139 Gill, Neelam, 97 global, blogosphere, 105 business network, 86 campaign(s), 97, 131 capitalist trends, xxv city centers, 109 conglomeration, 100 concern, 36 consumer(s) xiii, 17 finance, 109 following, xviii interactive potential, 34 leader, 119, 122 level, xxiii, 96, 134, 148 market, xviii, xxx (see also under market) movement, 29, 88 phenomenon, xviii, 24, 102–3 player, 98 project, 129 reach, 91, 100, 103 stage, xxxi, 42–61 strategy, 115 supermodels, 131 (see also under models) Go-Jek, 119–21 The Goods Dept, 57, 116, 123 Graham, Ashley, 97, 137 Grand Indonesia Mall, 35, 37, 110 Grazia, 27, 85 Grey, Collective, xxii Model Agency, xxii The Guardian, xix

209

Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem Warehouse, 141–2 Gunawan, Alessia, 47, 145 Gunawan Sebastian, 41, 47–8 H&M, 102, 117 Hakim, Christine, 135 Handley, Mahalia, 137 Haniwa, 87 Hardjonagoro, K.R.T., see Swan, Tik Go Harper’s Bazaar, 34, 85, 97–8, 100 Harper’s Bazaar Indonesia, 88, 96–7 Hartanto, Peggy, 42 Hartono brothers, 110 Harvey Nichols, 28, 117 Hasibuan, Anniesa, xxiv, xxxi, 29, 43, 58–61, 169–70 nn.46, 48, 48–51 haute couture, 16, 147 Hermès, 86, 117 Herzigova, Eva, 98 hijab xvii, xxv, 24, 61 (see also jilbab) hijaber (hijabi), 59, 134, 137 Hiyoji, Danjyo, 116 Hong Kong, 93, 99, 122 Hunger, xxii hybridization, 6 Ichsan, Firman, see Firman, Ichsan ID.FW, xxiii, xxvi, xxxi, 17, 24, 26, 29–34, 52, 57 identity, construction of xxx, 10 (of) collection, 51 cultural, xxv, xxx, 30–1 (of) community, 91 cosmopolitan, 86 (see also under cosmopolitan) Indonesian, xxv, 16, 32 mall, 110 markers, xxvii Muslim (Islamic) xxvi, 140 national, 3, 9, 17, 31 political, 91 religious, xxv, 137 self-, 140 visual, 102 women’s, 118 IFF, 45, 47

210

ikat, xxi, 15–16, 34, 57 tenun, xvii, 15–16, 28, 57 IKJ (Institut Kesenian Jakarta), xxii, 24–5, 145 individuality, xxxii, 103, 115, 142 Indo, 6, 7 (see also mestizo) Indonesia, colonial, 8, independence, 8, 17 post-independence, xxvii, 3, 38 pre-colonial, 3–4, 128 Indonesia Fashion Gallery, 60 Indonesianist(s), xxix influence, (of) religion, 97 Saudi, 141 (on) wedding dresses, 48 influencer(s), xxii, xxvi, xxxii, 24, 88, 100, 103–4, 138, 140 -activist, 129 celebrity, 134 (see also celebrity) self-branding, 101 International Apparel Federation, 47 IPMI, 12, 14–17, 24–5, 29–30, 32, 96 Trend Show xxvi, 26, 33–7, 51 Islam, xxv–xxvi, 18, 45, 97 Islamification, xxviii Istituto Marangoni, 27, 47 Iwan Tirta Private Collection 14, 114 (see also Tirta, Iwan) J+, 87 Jakarta, xxii, xxvi, xxvii, 9–10, 12, 13, 18, 23–6, 28–30, 33–4, 37, 41–2, 44, 46–8, 50, 55–9, 88, 91, 100–1, 103, 109–11, 112–21, 123, 132–3, 134–5, 140–1, 144 (see also Djakarta and Batavia) Jakarta Convention Center, 17, 31, 53 The Jakarta Globe, 87 The Jakarta Post, xxiii, 17, 29, 87 Japan, 9, 122, 132 Japanese, 8–9, 93, 110, 116, 134 jasa titip (jastip), xxxii, 112–13, 117–18, 123–5 Java, xvii, xx, 5–6, 8–11, 13–14, 30, 38, 44, 46, 50, 54, 110, 119–20, 140 Javanese, court dance(s), xxi, 14, 38

INDEX

nobility, 6, 8, society 6–8 temples, xx–xxi, 4 (see also candi) Javanization, 12 Jawa Pos News, 86 JD.id, 34, 122–3 JFW (Jakarta Fashion Week), xxv, xxvi, xxxi, 17, 2333, 59, 88, 133–34 jilbab, xxii, 29, 32, 43 (see also hijab) JIM Models, 134–5 Jimmy Choo, 91 Joesoef, Soekasah Janna, 43, 117 Joewono, Handoko Tri, xxvi, 35–6, 41, 50–2, 135 jumputan, 16, 44 (see also pelangi) Juwita, Ria, 116, 134 KADIN, 16 kain, xvii, 4–8, 11–15, 38, 141–2 (see also under kebaya) kampung, 109, 114 Karen Millen, 116 Kartini, Adjeng Ayu, 8 Kawilarang, Non, 12, 15 kebaya, xvii, 5–8, 11, 13, 15–16, 147 Indische kebaya, 6 kain kebaya, 6–8, 12–13, 15, 38 (see also kain) kemben (kenben), 4–5 Klensch, Elsa, 17 Komedie Stamboel, 144 Kompas Gramedia, 86 konde, 12, 142 Kors, Michael, 114 Kostoom, 142 Kota Kasablanca, 113 Knox, Kelly, 138 Kraton, 34, 41, 48 kretek, 100 Kromo, 49 Kuala Lumpur, 45, 112 Kuta, 110 Labibi, Lutfi Lulu, 38, 43–4 La Divina Marchesa, see Casati-Stampa, Luisa Lagerfeld, Karl, 37, 134 Lake Toba, 32, 45 Lamuda, Jason 121–2

INDEX

La Salle, 29 Lazada, 119 Le Bon, Yasmin, 98 Lee, Soojin, xix LFW (London Fashion Week), 27, 60 lifestyle, xviii, xix, 8, 45, 50, 56, 58–9, 68, 85, 90–2, 94–6, 98–101, 103–4, 111, 117 (see also under magazines) Linggar, Davy, 145 Lippo Mall, 58 local, agencies, 133 brands, 88, 115, 121, 142 communities and environments, xvii, 57 concerns, xxiv context, 37 label, 15 (see also under fashion) markets and commerce, xxiv, 116 materials, 42 models, 93, 99, 132 production, 18, 28, 53, 55 professional experts, xxii publisher, 96 techniques, 56 textile(s), 15 traditions and values, 5, 129 versus franchises, xxxi, 85, 86, 96, 100 L’Officiel, 85 London, xix–xxii, 6, 13, 27–8, 44, 57–60, 91, 117, 130, 145 Louboutin, 114, 116 Louis Vuitton, 37, 60, 86, 91, 113 Lucedale, 103 lurik, 38, 44 McQueen, Alexander xix, 37, 48, 51, 114 Macys, 117 magazine(s) alternative, xxiv, 87 conventional and mainstream, xxxii, 100–1 fashion, xxiv, xxvii, 16, 24, 34, 42, 86–9, 96, 104, 129, 141, 144, 146 franchise, 34, 85–6, 96, 98, 100 (see also franchises) Indonesian, 100, 103 international, 96, 98

211

lifestyle, 86–7, 128, 141 (see also lifestyle) local, 85–6 online, xix, xxxi, 85, 87, 101, 128 print, xix, xxvi, xxxi, 26, 29, 85, 128 women’s, xxi, 85, 89, 100–3, 135, 137 Magdalene, xxiv, xxxi, 87–8, 101–2 Mahisasuramardini Durga, 4–5 Majapahit, 4–5 Major Minor, 28, 37, 98 Malaysia, 9, 45, 99, 120, 123 mall(s), see also under identity as arbiters of taste, xxxii atrium(s) of, 115 cheap, 113 chic and high-end, 14, 113, 118 demise of, 119 hierarchy, 112 hypermodern, 111 mid-range, 112 older, 114 online, 119 prestigious, 91, 116 shopping, xxvi, xxxi, 26, 33, 50, 57, 109, 110–11, 115, 122, 125 as socio-cultural locus, 111 structure, 15 visiting and shopping (at), 111, 118, 125, 141 Mambo, Carmanita, see Carmanita MAMPU, 46 Mangga Dua, 113 Mango, 117, 125 market(s), see also under fashion and under global and local Australian, 27 competition, 132 economy, xxx, Euro-American, 18 fashion, xix, 28, 121 Indonesian, 18 indoor, 115 international 52, 57 mass, 61 middle, 113 online, 119, 124–5 segment, 121 Singapore, 90 for uniforms, 54

212

marketing, xxvii, xxxii, 18, 42, 59, 88, 101, 105, 111, 115, 121 Marks and Spencer, 112 May, Emily 145 May, Sally-Ann 145 Maulana, Didiet, 116 media, see also under fashion and advertising, 127–8 company, 35 conglomeration, 86, 96, 100, 105 convergence, 86, 143 exposure, xxii fashion, 100, 103, 105 groups, xxxi, 85–6 Indonesian, 23, 96 industry, 131 international, 29, 59, 89, 96 images, 9 mainstream, 102 network, xxv online, xxvi, xxvii, 100, 105 print, xxvii, xxviii, 23, 87 representatives, 25 social, xxvi, xxxii, 24, 48, 59, 85, 87, 94, 101, 103–4, 112, 118, 121–2, 124–5, 128-$29, 41, 144 women’s, 95 mediation, xxvi, xxxi, 26, 87–8, 105, 143, 146 Meisel, Steven, 50 Menteng, 109, 114, 123 mestizo 5, 6, see also Indo #metoo, 89 Milan, 27, 45, 47, 56, 85 Millen, Karen 116 Milo, 42, 55 mimicry, xxviii, 8 Mimpi Dara 53 Mind Game, 35–6 Miss Indonesia, 94, 102 (see also Puteri Indonesia) moda mare, 55 model(s), activist(s), 127–8, 137, 138 agency (agencies), xxi, xxii, 14–15, 130, 133–5 Asian, xix, 131, 133 atypical, xxiii Caucasian, 99, 131–3

INDEX

curvy, 131 diversity, of 98 editorial, 132, 137 exploitation of, 130–1 fit, 54 girls next door, 94 height, 134 Indonesian 93, 132–4 Inspirational, 29 in hijabs, 60, 137 middle-aged, 98 and muses, xxxii, 128, 135, 136 mystique of, 129 non-professional, 60, 93 older, xviii–xix, xxii, 36, 97–8, 131, 148 professional, 15, 85, 91, 137, 147 real women, xxii runway (catwalk), 25, 132–3 search, 14, 33, 133 silver-haired, xxiii, 36 supermodels, 32, 97–8, 131, 134, 136 (see also under global) unconventional, xxiii, 56 un-representative, 89 young, younger, 90, 97, 130, xxii modeling, xviii, xix, xxi, xxiii, 14, 32, 45, 88, 93, 97–8, 102, 115, 129–35, 137 modernity, Eastern/Asian, 10 hyper, 111 Indonesian, xxx, 8 liquid, xxviii performance of, 111 (see also under performance) western, 10 modest wear, xxiii–xxv, xxxi, 42–3, 60, 117, 123, 147 (see also busana muslim) moulage, 32, 38 Muljadi, Laura 132 muse(s), xxxii, 48, 51, 57, 128, 134–7 (see also under model(s)) musholla, 110 nation, 9–13, 31, 53, nationalism, 7, 9, 17 netnography, xxvi

INDEX

New York, xviii, xx, xxi, 34, 36, 48, 59–61, 90–1, 115, 117, 136 niqab, 32, 113, 141 nonya, 6 NooR, 87 Nugroho, Eko, 37 Nurhayati, Teti, 60 Nuttall, Martha Ellen, 41, 57–8 nyai, 6 NYFW (New York Fashion Week), xviii, 48, 58, 60–1 OQ Modelling, 135 Order, New (Order Baru), 3, 9, 12–14, 16–18, 26, 32, 46, 55, 95 Old (Order Lama), 9 Orient, xxvii, 60–1 other, 7, 61 othering, xxiv, 44 Owen, Patrick, 42 Oxford Fashion Studio, 27 PKI (Indonesian Communist Party), 9, 11 Pacific Place, 114 Panarese, Cristina, 41, 47–8 Pancasila, 11 Pangabbean, Ghea, xxvi, 16, 32, 34, 41, 43–4, 114, 117, 123, 132, 135 PAPMI, 12, 14 Paris, xx, xxi, 6–7, 16, 23, 48, 90, 93, 116, 134 Pelangi, Dian, 27, 29, 59 pelangi, 16, 44 (see also jumputan) pencak silat, 53 peranakan, 6, 8 performance, art and artists, 38, 52, 138–9, 140 of fashion, xxvi, xxviii, xxxi, 38, 41, 112 of femininity, 127 modeling as, 137 of modernity, 111 (see also under modernity) modes of, xxvi practices, xx of the self, 88, 102 (see also under self) traditional, 53, 144 Perini, Susanna, 41, 54–6 Pesona, 29 Pinterest, 95, 124

213

Playboy, 96 Plaza Indonesia, 14, 17, 33–4, 48, 56, 90–1, 111–12, 114–18 Plaza Senayan, 114 pluralism, xxiii, 18, 87 poleng, 51 Pondok Indah Mall, 114 Pop U by Populo, 116 populism, 18 pornography and anti-pornography, 96–7, 139 Prambanan, xx, 4 Prestige, 85, 88, Prestige Indonesia 48, 99–100 production, artisanal, 31 companies, 130 competitive, 30 faster, 7 in-house, 46, 49 large scale, xxxi networks of, 146 model, 46 niche, xxxi, 55 process, 86 ready-to-wear, 123 small scale, 46 social, 109 sustained, 28 Purwakarta, xvii Puteri Indonesia, 102 (see also Miss Indonesia) Queen Juliana, 15 Raffles, Olivia, (Lady), 6 Raffles, Stamford, (Sir), 6 Rana Plaza, xxi reformasi, xxvii, 17, post-reformasi, xxvii, xxx, 3, 17–18, 31, 37, 41 Rome, 32, 45, 55 Sadikin, Ali, 13, 15 Salihara, 37 Sakti, G. Boi, 53 Sarinah, 51 Sarinah (department store), 12, sarong, xvii, 5–6, 11

214

Satriyo, Hakim 145 Saudi Arabia, xxvi (see also UAE) Saul Studio, xxvi, 123 Saverio, Tex, 42 Sayogo, Mira, 32, 97 SebastianRed, 47 SebastianSposa, 47–8, 114 sekaten, 38 Sejauh Mata Memandang, 34 Selfe, Daphne, 98 self (self-), acceptance, 97, 138 advancement, 103 branding, 88, 101 esteem, xxvii exoticise, 43 experimentation, 88 expression, 138 financed, 59 generated, 147 identity, 140 involvement, 147 model-self, 148 monitoring, 103 orientalising, xxviii, 47 perception of, xxxii performance of, 88, 102 (see also under performance) promotion, 103 and subjectivity, 147 Senayan City, 26–7, 29, 33–5, 51, 118, 123 Seoul, xxi, 23, 38 serimpi, 4 Shah, Dato’ Sri Rezza, 45 Shanghai, 33 shar’ia 18, 102 Shopee, 124 shopping, online, xxxii, 111, 123, 125 practices xxxii, 112 Sie, Peter, 12, 15 Siegle, Lucy, 27 Singapore, 6, 11, 38, 45, 90, 97, 99, 112–13, 133, 135 Singosari, 4–5 size, plus, 97, 121, 131, 133, 137 s size, 54 0 to 4, 133

INDEX

skin, see color of Soekasah, Amanda, 43 Soesastro, Auguste, 34, 41, 48, 50, 53, 116 Sofia, 45 Sofia Fashion Week, 45 Sogo, 114 Solo, 10, 14 (see also Surakarta) songket, xvii, xxi, 53 sopan, xx, xxiii, 18, 45 Southdale Center 109 Southeast Asia, xx–xxi, 28, 30, 86, 99, 119, 121, 123, 134, 144 South Korea, xxii, 132–3 Sozzani, Franca, 50 Spade, Kate, 116 Spies, Walter 10 stilista, 117, 179 n.45 store, concept, 56, 58 department, 12, 35, 123, 114, 141 flagship, 14, 121, 122 in-, 112 luxurious, 59 offline, 121 online, 124 pop-up, 58 style, and beauty, see under beauty blogosphere, 88 as cultural capital, 118 discourses on, 118 as elite practice, 118 indie, 118 individual, xxxii, 116 intellectual, 50 performance of, 118 personal, 102, 104–5 reinterpret(ing), 137 sense of, 116 signature, 37, 44, 49 strategy, 142 street, 24 sumptuous, 144 timeless, 89 trendy, 125 styling, xxvii, 32, 42–4, 56, 103–4, 117–18, 123, 139, 140, 144 Subowo, Muljana Wiwied, 97, 135

INDEX

subversion, xxv, xxviii, xxxii, 7, 100 Suharto, xxvii, 9, 11–12, 15, 17, 86, 95, 109 Sukarno, 9–13 Sulawesi, 30, 35, 58 Sumatra, 30, 32 Sumba, 91 Surakarta, see Solo Suryodarmo, Melati 139 Susan Budihardjo School 47, 51 sustainability, xxvi, 28–31, 53 Svastiari, Dewi Ajeng, 35, 138–40, 190 n.47 Swan, Tik Go, 10, 13 (see also K.R.T. Hardjonagoro) Syamsidar, Isa, 15 (see also Mbak Tjammi) Taman Anggrek, 109 Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, 12 Tandiono, Kelly, 135 Tatler, 85 Tatler Indonesia 49, 90, 105 temples, xx, xxi, 4, 128 Tettoni, Invernizzi Luca 144 textiles, traditional 15–17, 31, 51 Thaib, Sarita, 32, 88, 93, 98, 135 Thamrin City, 113 theory, social, xxix sociological, xxv theoretical, analysis, 11 conformity, xxix framework(s), xxiv underpinnings, xxviii, xxxiii, 145 Timeless Beauty, xxiii, 129 #timesup, 99 Tirta, Iwan, 13–14, 53, 135, 147 (see also Iwan Tirta Private Collection) Tirto.id, 124 Tjammi, Mbak, see Syamasidar Isa Tokyo, xxi, 36, 51, 131 Topshop, 27, 125 The True Cost, 27 Turkey, 46, 123 Twitter, 91, 95, 104, 119, 124

215

Uber, 118 UAE, United Arab Emirates 58, 59, ulos, 45 uniform(s), corporate, 41, 46, 54 office, 11–13, 15, 54 urban, centers, 110, 119, 121, 141, 143 chic, 41 development, 109 high-earners, 119 living, 141 middle-class, 7–8, 38, 90, 141, 144 wear, 55 wearer, xxxii, 127–8 Utami, Ayu, 115 Valentine, Rebecca, xxii Valentino, 114 Verhoeven, Paula 132 Vela Asia, 119 de Villeneuve, Jan 97 Vimeo, 50 Visionaire, 50–1, 132, 139 vloggers, xxxii, 101–3 (see also bloggers) VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie), 6 British, 131, 137 India, xix, 30 Italia, 34, 50 Vogue, 24, 26, 30, 34, 50, 89, 92 Voss, 37 Wahhabism, xxvi Wanaatmadja, Biyan, 27, 34, 42, 53, 114, 123, 135, 145 (see also Biyan) wayang, 14, 38 weavers, 15, 28, 45, 57 weaving, 3, 15, 45, 112, 148 What’sApp, 25, 119, 121 Whiteboard Journal, 49–50 Wibowo, Rio 145 Widyatmojo, Musa, 41, 52–4, 58 Wirabudi, Amy, 30, 52 Wirjono, Anton, xxii women, activists, 138–40 artists, 138–9 comfort, 9

216

cosmopolitan, 32 entrepreneurs, 95 high-powered, 29 home-workers, 46 immigrant, 61 independent, 49 inspirational, 29 intellectual, 49 lower-class, 4, 8 middle-aged, 98, 116 middle-class, 141, 144 Muslim, 45, 59 older, xix, xxviii, xxxii, 89, 98 ordinary, xxvi, xxxii, 45, 127, 138, 143 outside Indonesia, 54, 57 position of, 8 pro-, 95 professional, 141 in public life, xxii “real”, xxii, 57 (see also under model) sexual harassment of, 100 shoppers, 127

INDEX

state of, 101–2 successful, 99 village, 4 violence towards, 100 upper-middle-class, 89 urban, 57, 90, 105 western-educated, 8 “who model”, 137 young, 44, 129 Wynn Models, 132, 135 Yamamoto, Yohji, 116 Yogya, see Yogyakarta Yogyakarta, 14, 38, 45, 50, 110 (see also Yogya) YouTube, xxxii, 50, 91, 98, 104–5, 119 Yunardi, A. Rinaldy, xvii, 35, 51, Yunasz, Itang, 29 Zalora, 119 Zara, 112, 114, 117, 125 Zyriab Fashion Show, 59

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