D

an was a British investment consultant I had to work with for a while recently. Coming for business for a few weeks a couple of times a year, he developed quite an affinity for Indonesia, its culture and people.

He'€™d been excited to get batik shirts and loved the handicrafts I gave him and his significant other, so I was surprised of his final comment of the coat in the conversation (Camden being a merry, anything-goes neighborhood in London, instead of fashionable Bond St. or the polished financial blocks called City).

It was a well-tailored, high-collared, knee-length coat made fully of tenun (traditional hand-woven) from Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, designed by one of Indonesia'€™s well-respected fashion designers.

The peak-shaped pattern is defined and layered, the colors are bold, and I'€™d wear it proudly on any street from New York to Johannesburg.

Dan further admitted that the batik shirts he'€™d gotten were worn mostly during his time here, and not so much for when back home.

I made inquiries to over a dozen expats I know and discovered similar answers '€” save for the muted colors and simple motifs, sheepishly they admitted. Hmm.

I went home, opened my closet and pulled out all the beautiful batik and tenun ikat, songket and ulos I'€™d accumulated over the years and tried very hard to see them with fresh eyes.

I called up mental images of world'€™s metropolitans and tried to picture these fabrics on their toniest neighborhoods.

Suddenly, but slowly, it dawned on me. They'€™re ethnic. Unique, but ethnic '€” easily be too ethnic for their own good.

Uh-oh.

Immediately my mind went to the tens of thousands of weavers, crafters, artists and everyone in between whose livelihood depends on the traditional fabric industry whose business we'€™re so eager to push for global market.

A major uh-oh.

The topic resurfaced when Jakarta Fashion Week was in full swing earlier this week at the intimate discussion with fashion observer Colin McDowell and fashion business author Toby Meadows.

However gorgeous the patterns and colors of these native fabrics to our Indonesian eyes, they may well be too daring and garish for international customers to appreciate them beyond the exclusive, hence limited niche market of '€˜heritage items'€™.

Or worse, the heritage-inspired '€˜costumes'€™ '€” the ones that are fabulous for the natives to wear, but awkward on everyone else.

Yes, I know, a handful of fashion-forward crowd and most hippie-at-heart folks will always find ways to incorporate traditional Indonesian fabrics into their wardrobe, but the regular Joes and Janes will have a very hard time to do so.

Are all gloom and doom, then? I'€™d like to think that it'€™s not. I think the key is design, because design directs the flow of the cut, the shape of pattern, and the palette of color.

The design must be very contemporary that it may well invoke a narrative of our traditions, but not necessarily making potential customers feel like they need to be in a Kalimantan riverbank or Borobudur Temple hosting cultural dinners before they can wear the frock.

Will it diminish the volume of traditional fabrics used by Indonesian designers, though? For the exception of certain batiks, in the short run it may be.

But if more contemporary Indonesian designers become aware of this room to grow and want to explore and experiment further with traditional fabrics in the long run it will organically push modern innovations to unfortunately antiquated business of Indonesian traditional fabrics that will lead to a base shift up for the volume and value for both fabric artisans.

Wouldn'€™t it be what we all have been dying to see?

Can Indonesian designers pull it off, though? Just based on the first half of Jakarta Fashion Week 2015, I'€™d say yes. Just to name two here '€” Oscar Lawalata'€™s subtle black-on-black batik motifs on silk, inspired by Javanese palace bedays dancers, and Mel Ahyar'€™s riveting digital prints on
organdi that was drawn from the ancient Sriwijaya of South Sumatra.

While still needs to mature a whole lot more in its designs, a promise was found Etu, a new Muslim fashion label that successfully departed from the flowing and billowy cuts and went for structured, classic, almost androgynous look '€” a slice that the rapidly rising Muslim fashion market is sorely lacking and I bet commands a sizable chunk if tapped into.

And with that, darlings, I concluded this footnotes from the Jakarta Fashion Week. Must rush for Closing show now. If you'€™re spotting a girl in blue-pink sundress made of tenun Baduy, please don'€™t be too shy to say hi. Mwah!