Tasha Darsono: Of Her Own Design

The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER   |  Sat, 08/23/2008 4:25 PM  |  Profile

Tasha Darsono has taken her design business from her kitchen table to the world, winning over fans with accessories that are unconventional, bold and in-your-face. Rather like the woman who makes them, Imogen Badgery-Parker writes.

When cleaning out some old boxes last year, Tasha Darsono came across a forgotten collection of hairpins and earrings, pink and frilly in the way only little girls can love. This, she remembered, was where it all began: 12-year-old Anastasia, scouring markets for ribbons, gluing pieces together and selling her finished designs to the other girls at school.

More than 20 years later, she has exchanged the pink frills and playground for “wearable art” and a thriving business, her journey from preteen entrepreneur to acclaimed accessory designer made with the unwavering perseverance of a homing pigeon.

Tasha’s simple dress and brisk, no-nonsense manner say businesswoman rather than artist. She doesn’t mince words, never hesitates and makes every minute work as hard as she does.

“You should see how I work. I go up and down the stairs, I don’t know how many times a day,” she says from her office on the middle floor of her three-story showroom/workroom in South Kemang, Jakarta. “I have my creation part upstairs, I have to do my display part downstairs, I have to take the sales here. It’s a lot of work.”

Especially because the self-confessed workaholic and perfectionist insists on complete control.
“To me it’s like the marionette, the puppet show. It has to be very well coordinated, that’s how you get a good show.”

The show’s finale is the art-gallery-like shop on the ground floor, but it begins upstairs, around a large table covered with a riotous jumble of fabrics, lace and other materials. Eight women sit around the worktable, heads bent over their detailed needlework. Behind them, a wall holds rows of canisters, each containing different stones and beads, ribbons and chains, shiny and colorful “like a candy store,” Tasha says, her face lighting up at the sight.

The eclectic, unconventional use of materials is a Tasha D. gioielli trademark (“gioielli” is Italian for jewelry). Beads, semi-precious stones, wood, pearls, twine, plastic, a motorbike chain – anything is fair game for Tasha. Even one of her son’s toy dinosaurs did time on a chain round her neck.

“A lot of people are working with gold, diamonds,” she says. “What I’m trying to do is dig further, see what I can do out of very simple things, things around us.”

The source of her creativity is something of a mystery; her family has no other artists but her musically inclined half-brother. She attributes her ability to encouragement from her elders (“I think encouragement gives strength”) and supportive parents.

The business acumen she acquired from her father, a Dutch-educated businessman and workaholic, but “no matter how hard he worked, I never heard him complaining. He’d just do it,” she says. “And maybe that’s why no matter how hard it is sometimes, I just have to move forward.”

At 9, she was designing her own clothes, at 12 tasting the heady combination of art and money, and at 18 jetting off to Paris alone: “I always did things out of the box. At that time, everyone was going to the U.S.”

Tasha stayed four years in Paris (“the best years”), studying trend forecasting, where she “learned about life, not just design”. She found the Parisians “so rude”, but rose to their challenge; now she almost thanks them for hardening the “take-no-crap” attitude that has served her so well during the tough times back home.

Called back to Jakarta after her father’s death, she took a job in fashion PR, but missed “the passion” of creating. So nights and weekends, at her kitchen table, she designed accessories and “started a small business ... no, it wasn’t really a business, it was a hobby”.

Somehow, she found time to get pregnant – but not married. She made no effort to hide she was going to be a single mother, to the admiration of some and the horror of many.

“Being loud about it, being open about it, the dirty looks I got! Even people who didn’t know me, they’d be like, ‘Ah, the girl who had a baby on her own.’”

It hurt but she learned to deal with it.

“People would come to me and say, ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you so brave doing this?’” she says. “I don’t have to be ashamed of it. It’s my life, my decision. So if you don’t like it, don’t stay around me.”

Another brave move came when her son was 18 months old (he is now 5): she quit her PR job, both to spend more time with him and to take her fledgling accessories business full-time. She was determined to challenge set ideas about business: “It seems here there’s some kind of template – how you can be successful is by doing ABC. Otherwise, well, they might not even look at you.”

Operating on a shoestring budget and without guidance, she was “in the dark. I was just trying to find my way. I’d bump into something and try again”. She did things her way, holding exhibitions, sending out samples, remaining visible and producing new collections at a breathtaking rate.

She also set out to redefine where accessories fit in fashion, bringing them out from behind the scenes. Her pieces demand attention – they are the outfit, the clothes the backdrop – and the “big stuff” is her most popular.

“I like to make people feel different when they wear my stuff, to stand out with unique designs, bold designs,” she says.

That education in Paris was not wasted. Tasha is tapping into a trend – a desire for something interesting, different – that is seeing the popularity of her brand soar. Several magazines have featured her pieces and orders are pouring in from across the world.

“But my biggest achievement or satisfaction comes from when I see people around me wearing my stuff,” she says. “Because I would sit for hours and days and weeks, trying to get one sample done. And to actually see people walking around with it, it’s like I just got an award.”

Not that she spends much time contemplating success – that would require sitting still. Tasha is in constant motion, doing “two or three things at the same time”, exuding energy, easily bored and always dashing off to the next thing.

But she has plenty to keep her occupied: hiring an agent in New York, putting out new collections, planning her wedding (she is marrying a Frenchman in October) and a honeymoon in India – “all those materials,” she sighs. And then?

“If I knew what was coming next, I’d be bored already.”

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