Women, both young and old, share the same desire: They just want to look fabulous.
For Muslim women, however, a certain challenge is involved because they have to stick to their religious values — no transparent fabric, no skimpy dresses and no minis, not even microskirt.
The recent Islamic Fashion Festival at the Dharmawangsa in South Jakarta tried to prove the contrary that women could still look beautiful while maintaining modesty. And as predicted mainstays of Islamic fashion, loose long dresses, tunic shirts, long skirts and trousers, jodhpur pants and maxi-pantsuits are featured in the festival.
Featuring 15 Indonesian designers and six Malaysian designers, the festival showcased traditional fabrics and patterns under the theme Cita Nusantara, or fabrics of archipelago. It featured Malaysian hand-painted batik, Yogyakarta’s batik and East Nusa Tenggara’s woven clothes.
Malaysian designer Tom Abang Saufi takes Borneo as a theme for her design. The Sarawak-born designer uses circular patterns found in tribal communities. Her flowing garments, combining tunic shirt and skirt or a shirt and trousers, come in black and white.
“I normally use bold colors, but this time I only go for black and white. Every woman always wants to have at least a black or a white dress in her wardrobe. I also wanted to make nice, comfortable clothes, so I made dresses without a zipper. I made wide necklines, though, so women can put on the dresses over the neck,” she said.
A similar approach was taken by her fellow Malaysian designer Abdul Kareem Khadani, who adopts sea as his design theme. Abdul Kareem uses splashes of green, blue and purple to white-hooded maxi dresses.
Jakarta-based designer Hannie Hananto uses the pattern of Batik Parang. However, she modified it into tangerine and gray-colored cubist patterns on satin, silk and chiffon.
“Many people think that the market is already saturated with batik-patterned dresses. We only need to modify it and create new patterns. Since Muslim dresses have to stick to religious values, I only play with colors, tangerine and grey, and the drapery silhouette,” she said.
Designer Jeny Tjahjawati takes Makassar’s Sengkang silk ikat weaving for her inspiration. The colorful weaving of floral patterns is applied on white silk fabric that is usually worn as sarong.
“The fabric is made from stiff natural silk, so I used it in outer garments, like vests. For the inner garments, I used T-shirts printed with the pattern,” she said.
The festival also put a spotlight on designer Ghea Panggabean, who has been working in the industry for 30 years. Ghea uses embellishments and prints in her designs, consisting of long kaftans, kabayas, embroidered long jackets and jodhpur pants, all bearing batik patterns of Sumatra, Java and Bali.
While the theme of the festival is Islam, designers come from different backgrounds, Bali-based designer Milo and Malaysian designer Melinda Looi are both non-Muslims.
Festival committee chair Dato Raja Rezza Shah said he wanted the festival to reach out for non-Muslim so he invited non-Muslim designers to take part.
“We want to show that fashion can unite people and go beyond borders of culture and religion,” Rezza Shah said.
While the festival celebrates its 4th anniversary this year, Rezza Shah hopes it could highlight the allure of Islamic fashion to the world. He brought the festival to New York last month, and will go to Monte Carlo in August and make stops in Qatar and Singapore in September.
“Non-Muslim thinks that Muslim women should always wear black and that Islamic attire is a punishment for the women. They don’t know that it can also look chic,” he said.
He said that if the Islamic fashion could appeal the fashion senses of non-Muslims. He said that Islamic fashion was in fact good news for the industry. “One dress could use up to six meters of fabric,” he said.
“Actually, the headscarf will be a good solution for bad hair days. Women who do not have time to go to hairdresser can wear headscarves too,” he said.
