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Ten years after friends call us UNKL347
What started as an attempt by a couple of youngsters in Bandung, West Java, to create clothes that represented their personalities (creative and fun-loving) and interests (skateboarding, music and graphic design) has become a growing business that has helped shape the youth culture in Bandung and other cities in Indonesia
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What started as an attempt by a couple of youngsters in Bandung, West Java, to create clothes that represented their personalities (creative and fun-loving) and interests (skateboarding, music and graphic design) has become a growing business that has helped shape the youth culture in Bandung and other cities in Indonesia.
(JP/Ricky Yudhistira)
Now, UNKL347, a pioneer indie clothing company in Bandung that has helped create a tight community of Bandung's indie music and art scene, is celebrating its creative engagement by releasing a design book containing a selection of 12 years worth of work.
The book, titled after ten years, people call as unkle, is a presentation of the company's ever-evolving creativity. It is a design archive -- hard covered and 248 pages -- which includes apparel design, print ads, catalogues, stickers and postcards.
"This is our contribution to the Indonesian graphic design scene. We live for graphic design and we want to be part of Indonesian graphic design history," Dendy Darman, founder of UNKL347 , said.
The book is ambitious in terms of materials used: a bright blue and cyan woven cloth for the cover; different types of paper, from tracing paper to plastic; a smaller note attached inside the book; all in full color.
Ardo Ardhana, head of S.C.A.N.D.A.L, a division in UNKL347 responsible for the book, said the book would be sold at bookstores for around Rp 350,000 (US$29) to Rp 500,000.
"That definitely doesn't cover the production costs," he said.
Dendy, who has a laid-back flare, said the company was not concerned with making a profit from the sales of the book.
"We want to make history, we want to contribute.
"The book can travel worldwide, it can land in Singapore, Malaysia, and people will know our works better," he said.
Fashion critic Samuel Mulia contributed a piece on how both high-fashion and indie fashion dictates the way people dress.
Ronal Holoang from Concept magazine, a publication specializing in graphic design, contributed an article on stealing ideas and creativity.
Furniture designer Joshua Simanjuntak wrote about his story in design. Nasta Soetardjo wrote on the growth of the indie music scene in Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya. And Gustaff Hariman Iskandar, wrote about Dendy's unique design.
The seeds for UNKL347 first sprouted in 1996, when Dendy, then studying design at Bandung Institute of Technology, started to make T-shirts and Dacron jackets under the name 347boardriders.
Their logo was a simple design of a bowl symbolizing the skateboard ramp. Their first store, 347, opened in 1999 on Jl. Ir. H. Juanda No. 347, Bandung.
The company inspired others to open up clothing companies and sparked a wave of indie clothing trend in Bandung. Now, one can find several distros (distribution outlets selling indie clothing) in Bandung, such as Monik, Airplane, Ouval and Wadezig, among others. These labels have become household names for stylists from youth programs on MTV Indonesia and teen fashion magazines.
UNKL347 also became part of the indie music, nightlife and art exhibition scene in Bandung. The people in UNKL347 organized events and underground parties, documented in zines such as Trolley and Ripple.
S.C.A.N.D.A.L. is now the company's dedicated division that oversees art events and projects.
Up to now, UNKL347 have changed their label name four times. After 347, they renamed themselves as 347/eat in 2003 and as UNKL347 in 2006.
"We don't want to make a brand like Nike or Adidas, we want to keep evolving. If people follow our development they would know about our changes. If they don't then, they don't," Dendy said.
Dendy did not seem to be worried about people stealing designs from the book.
"That is inevitable," he said. "But that's OK."
Meanwhile, Ardo said that it was usual for people to get inspiration by seeing the designs of others.
"We have even taken some ideas from foreign designers," he said.
UNKL347 designs have the signature style of modern graphic art. It draws inspiration from avant garde styles such as Bauhaus. An emphasis on typography is also shown.
Gustaff, in his piece, wrote that "Dendy was a collector of light pop icons and enjoyed playing with clever visual compositions from a play of pop color spectrum, form instillation, letter cuts, partial lyrics, textual narration and various icons from his everyday life.
"Dendy's work has already became a common trend in Bandung. The visual language exploration he created is already becoming iconic, especially in the development of fashion in the city -- if not also Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Surabaya."
