Just when you’ve modified your eating habits, body clock and social calendar to fit into the punishing schedule of this year’s Jakarta Fashion Week, it’s finally over, just as swiftly as it begun.
Keeping up with the yearly tradition, the closing show of the event, Dewi Fashion Knight brought together five Indonesian designers, anointed and tasked them with an assignment to create a collection based on the theme, “Eyes to the Future”.
Judging from fbudi’s collection, the future, unfortunately, appears to be grim and the models looked as if they were the survivors of a regrettable nuclear war. Designer Felicia Budi is known for her fascination with the characteristics and texture of a fabric (previously, she has experimented with Tyvek, a fabric with paper-like quality). This time round, pieces like poncho dress were distressed and tattered to imply the fact that it had seen a better day.
But Felicia also didn’t forget to inject hope and optimism into the collection. The use of only a single colour, sandy yellow, gave off a feeling of camaraderie among these women. Better yet, these looks transmitted a sense of movement and an air of poetry. One couldn’t help but wish it could be worn on the body of a contemporary ballet dancer.
Lulu Lutfi Labibi turned to his Yogyakarta roots in search for his own version of the future and it consisted of women rediscovering the allure of traditional crafts and fabrics. The collection was rousing in looks that came in an eruption of colours and motifs. But simpler looks, like the brown halterneck top with old-school flower prints paired with oversized navy pants cropped below the knees was equally arresting.
The romantic aura of the collection was further amplified with the elements of drapes and layers. However, the collection would have been more impactful with a stricter edit.
Haryono Setiadi also turned to tradition as a starting point in his collection, although the outcome was more seductive compared to Labibi’s offering. For this collection, Haryono employed Ikat Tenun (woven fabric) to provide texture and solidity to counter the soft, slinky silk dress.
The designer, however, used Ikat Tenun sparingly where it only appeared in a handful of looks, such as the bra top worn under a low-cut dark blue dress with a thigh-high slit as well as the Ikat Tenun patterns on sleeveless high-neck top over an identical silk dress. With such strong results, it’s a pity that the Sydney-based designer didn’t get to explore more of it in this collection.
Can Peggy Hartanto make a woman any less sexy? Judging from this collection, the answer is a confident no. Though the collection takes its cue from her recent S/S16 show, Peggy has succeeded in giving it a fresh new spin.
The predominant use of silver grey could easily add years to a woman’s age but these women came out sensual and elevated minus the dowdiness, thanks to Peggy’s signature cut-out techniques. The glossy sheen on these silver grey dresses somehow reminded one of, say, Apple’s stylish gadgets. Indeed, it’s not hard to believe that these looks came equipped with invisible futuristic technology infused within the fabric. Still, putting the interpretation aside, the guests were witnessing a future that has already arrived.
Accessories designer, Rinaldy A. Yunardi, loves drama. There’s no doubt about that as he sent out an army of menacing female warriors from the future. The designer has transformed the paper and metal into various exoskeletons as a form of protection – helmet, body armour, shoulder pads, kneepads and crowns.
Rinaldy managed to establish a hierarchy among the warriors through the degree of complexity in his creation. It’s like watching chess pieces, such as the rooks, knights, bishop and the queen, coming to live one by one. The designer also veiled his warriors with glow-in-the-dark face/eye shields, as if ready to fire laser blast or beam enemy into a different dimension at the drop of a command.
The collection was unapologetically over the top but it didn’t forget to display a riveting imagination and eye-opening result achieved simply from a modest material. And after all, what is future if it’s without imagination?
