LATEST NEWS:

Niken Prathivi

The Jakarta Post

Publication Date : 17-03-2013

Indonesian designers find new methods of bringing a fresh look to an ethnic woven fabric

Four Indonesian talented fashion designers shared the limelight, exploring the unique, rich woven fabrics of West Nusa Tenggara in about 60 looks.

Opening the show, rising artisan in Muslim wear, Irna Mutiara, exhibited her latest designs for “Reneo by Irna Mutiara” which use ethnic woven fabric, locally known as tenun, from Lombok. Reneo is an Indonesian premium brand initiated by the Industry Ministry, which is aimed at international market in the hope of following the Zara brand of Spain.

Within 15 items of her collection for women, entitled Treasure Trove, Irna explores the priceless Lombok woven fabric and finds new methods of bringing a fresh look to the fabric.

Irna plays with layers for her all-covered ateliers, combining between full-featured woven fabrics and modernised ones in pretty pastel colours of indigo, maroon, pink and brown to name a few — all using natural colouring.

“I started to make this collection a year ago as part of my job in supporting local weavers. I fell in love when I first saw the motif and quality of the fabrics,” said Irna, who is member of Indonesian Fashion Designers Association (APPMI).

In a simple three-piece of long-sleeved inner top, a slant line-pattern vest and a sarong in brown colour palette, Irna combines the thick traditional-textured woven fabric with a modern-textured sarong.

“I requested a more light and flexible version of the woven fabric and it indeed gives a fresher look for such traditional material, and automatically cut the production cost,” says Irna, who dreams of making tenun as popular as batik.

Another Irna’s look presents the modernised woven fabric in pale pink as an accent over a long-sleeved top in grey and harem pants in cream colour. A pretty rattan handbag tags along to match the outfit.

In the most fashionable way, Dwi Iskandar applied bright tones without losing masculinity in his collection.

Inspired by Middle East fashion, Dwi, under New Beginning theme, showcased a modern-style cutting for men, which is simple and comfortable to wear, mixed with the traditional look of the West Nusa Tenggara woven fabric.

Dwi’s collection included a long-sleeved trendy shirt in green and orange colours, dark orange rolled-up pants, simple red pipe pants in tenun motif and trendy long vest.

“I’m really inspired with the clothing style of Middle Eastern people, but I made some adjustment to meet with our own tradition look. This is a collection of modern ethnic for the young.

“I apply hand-stitched T-shirts to mix with the colourful items,” says Dwi, who also applied red, yellow, grey and black in the colour palette.

Epoel Daeng Hasanung featured colourful men’s collection. The designer seemed to enjoy mixing and matching the heavy-look of West Nusa Tenggara woven fabrics with casual yet adventurous jeans bottom.

In a look, all-woven fabric-made long jacket with a vertical line pattern, colourful inner and shawl were matched with
a simple pair of pencil jeans.

Later, Epoel combined indigo-coloured jacket and inner with motif with grey jeans. In another, the designer mix-matched shirt in bright colour with pastel-toned vest and jeans.

After some trendy men’s looks, Linda Hamidy Grander presented her Glamourous Tale collection.

The collection is indeed glamourous as Linda combines red with a motif in gold in a drapery long dress plus jacket.

In a sleeker look, Linda applied the woven fabric on short-sleeve top and horizontal line pattern on pants — all in combination of orange and black colours.

The remainder Linda’s collection was in a form of one-shouldered calf-length pretty dress, capes, sack dress and sleeveless top, with colours include orange, red, purple, pink and black.

“I’m using woven fabrics from the eastern part of Lombok because I’m inspired by the motifs of its woven fabrics. Those motifs can be so modern for me,” Linda says.

“All items in my collection apply looks from the past, which is from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s — that’s why I call it Glamourous Tale.”