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Jakarta Post

Anne Avantie: When time tests tradition

A dream come true for a bride-to-be, a bespoke kebaya wrought by the hands of Anne Avantie is as prized — and premium-priced — as a Tiffany’s engagement ring

Kindra Cooper (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, September 6, 2014

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Anne Avantie:   When time  tests tradition

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dream come true for a bride-to-be, a bespoke kebaya wrought by the hands of Anne Avantie is as prized '€” and premium-priced '€” as a Tiffany'€™s engagement ring.

Although deemed sacred as the country'€™s national dress, the kebaya was never considered haute couture before fashion designer Anne Avantie emerged.

Sequins, intricate beading, and even crystals '€” as in the case of singer Krisdayanti'€™s much-ballyhooed bridal kebaya at her first wedding - are Anne'€™s signature embellishments.

Her off-the-shoulder necklines, too, radically depart from classically form-fitting through modest kebaya design, enraging traditionalists who accused her of besmirching the garment'€™s ancestral values.

Now celebrating 25 years in the industry, Anne feels that tradition reigns stronger than ever '€” even as the kain (long cloth) traditionally worn with a kebaya now sports modern practicalities such as a clasp or zipper at the back so that it is worn like a skirt. 

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The traditional fabric, on the other hand, had to be tediously wound several times around the wearer'€™s waist and secured with string, restricting movement '€” thus meriting the phrase '€œjalan seperti pengantin'€ (walk like a bride) '€” and often required a helper to remove it.

'€œThe traditional kebaya is like my teacher, and I am using a different method to solve the same equation that ends in the same result,'€ Anne explained in an interview with The Jakarta Post.

'€œLike the head of a household, the Kartini collar and classic kain are still respected in our country.'€

Her designs, she concedes, combine classic with modern, but a designer cannot add value without recognizing that fashion trends are fleeting and market tastes evolving.

'€œIn the past, people would buy lace and take it to a tailor [to have it made into a kebaya] and that was it. It was never that way with me,'€ says Anne, who was acknowledged a pioneer of contemporary kebaya by the Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI) in 2011.

'€œI create the kebaya using blank tile and then I apply various types of fabric and lace embroidery to give it a whole different look that can appeal to different types of wearers.'€

The Puspawarni collection she presented at Jakarta Fashion Week 2013 even took cues from international runways '€” with color blocking (a trend of juxtaposing bright, clashing colors inspired by pop art) featuring in her designs.

Models sported vibrant corsets in metallic green, fuchsia and royal blue beneath a black mesh kebaya and carried shawls in matching hues. The real bombshell? Instead of batik kain they wore black silk ankle-length skirts with large floral designs -- even ballet tutus made an appearance. It proved a hit.

'€œI let my hands and mind lead my imagination and free my expression. If in the end my work has its own '€˜trademark'€™, then it is because I always try to be honest in my work,'€ she wrote in her autobiography Aku, Anugerah dan Kebaya (Blessings, Kebaya and I).

Life was an ordeal of running fast only to stay still for this autodidact designer, who found herself on the streets selling fruit snacks to school cafeterias after her first marriage broke down (she first wed at 19).

But an entrepreneurial spirit was her saving grace, cultivated since junior high when, as the family breadwinner she designed costumes for the school choir and made and sold beribboned hairpins to her classmates.

'€œI'€™ve been playing around with beads and sequins since I was five, when I helped my mother make hair accessories for her modest hair salon [...] and since I was little I could already detect my fashion sense. Fashion built my confidence, and I discovered that my talent could '€˜save'€™ my life.'€

Her ferocious passion for design redeemed her not only financially but spiritually, says Anne, a devout Catholic who idolizes Mother Theresa and describes life as an '€œinner pilgrimage'€. She pens frequent motivational essays for the Catholic women'€™s magazine, Inspiration.

'€œI invest my soul into every business endeavor, because the more I do so the stronger the selling power,'€ says the mother of three, who insists on doing everything by her own hands '€” even if it means clients must book a consultation months in advance.

'€œBusiness is an art because it'€™s about managing rhythm and aiming to increase market share should be like breathing '€” not panting.'€

 After meeting her current spouse, Joseph Henry Susilo, Anne opened a dressmaking boutique in 1989 called Griya Busana Permata Sari and began making costumes for dance and stage performances using two sewing machines she'€™d kept in her garage.

'€œI created whatever came to mind, initially without even thinking about its marketability,'€ she confesses, but such oversight may be the reason she didn'€™t acquiesce to the naysayers who condemned her attaching a floor-sweeping train, asymmetrical collar or backless design to a kebaya as '€œWesternization'€ or even '€œVictorianization'€.

A major newspaper wrote that Anne'€™s designs '€œwould make Ibu Kartini cry'€, in reference to the pioneer of women'€™s rights.

Even so, Anne'€™s '€œradicalization'€ of traditional dress spawned copycats left, right and center, and her designs have been worn by Miss Indonesia 1996, Alya Rohali, in 2001 and Miss Indonesia 2004, Artika Sari Devi, in the Miss Universe beauty pageant.

Lacking fashion school credentials, Anne attributes her instinct in cutting, sewing and creating patterns to her mother, a stage costume designer, who made Anne help her arrange sequins and flowers on her designs every day after school.

'€œShe taught me an unusual way to cut patterns. She would tell me to unstitch a piece of clothing I had just bought and trace its outline onto a piece of newspaper to create patterns for other clothing.'€

Now Indonesia'€™s most expensive kebaya designer, charging upwards of Rp 50 million (US$4,252) for a custom-made bridal kebaya, Anne is at the top of her game '€” but, she says, '€œbuilding a career as a designer was not my life'€™s goal'€.

A cause closer yet to her heart is Wisma Kasih Bunda, a shelter for hydrocephalus (an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the brain) sufferers, which she has overseen since 2000.

The foundation, which is being developed into a clinic, offers free services before and after surgery at the Elizabeth Hospital in Semarang.  

'€œI feel that being a designer is simply a bridge that makes me regarded and listened to and gives me the ability to inspire. The whole time I have been working I'€™ve been thinking about how I can pay it forward so that as a designer I can give more meaning to more people.'€

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