Mighty blue birds: The 2016 Jember Fashion Carnival remains faithful to its grand and colorful style.

The Jember Fashion Carnival has returned again this year, still with its signature grandeur that has smitten visitors for years despite a lingering budget deficit.

The Jember Fashion Carnival, the biggest parade in the country, came back this year under the theme of “Revival, From Indonesia to the World”.

Running from Aug. 25 until 28, the carnival, which is also known as the Grand Carnival, involved nearly 2,000 participants and an estimated 500,000 visitors from Indonesia and beyond.

The four-day event presented costumes under 10 themes, one of them entitled “Refugees”.

Under that theme, a line of models walked on a 3.6-kilometer street catwalk in lavish Middle Eastern-inspired costumes dominated by gold and silver sequins and abundant eye-catching gems.

Fashion designer and the carnival’s founder Dynand Fariz explained the costumes represented the hard life of refugees.

“These refugees have their peaceful life taken away, forcing them to seek refuge,” said Dynand, who started the annual carnival in his hometown, Jember, in 2001.

“I believe every person has the right to live peacefully,” he said.

While half of the costumes, created by local designers under the guidance of Dynand, reflected the carnival’s signature grand style, some aspiring designers from fashion design school ESMOD Jakarta gave a breath of fresh air to the theme.

The designers, who wore their own creations at the carnival, showcased their modern interpretations of refugees.

They played with simple color combinations and interesting structures to create angel costumes.

Some other designers showcased the grim side of seeking refuge with dark-colored garments, barbed wire and skull face paint.

“Refugees” was not the only critical theme in the Grand Carnival.

Dynand also said that the designers also tried to underline the importance of information transparency under the theme of “Chandelier”.

“The lamps of a chandelier represent transparency because they illuminate their surrounding and make everything clear,” Dynand said.

Aside from “Refugees” and “Chandelier”, the carnival was also filled with recurring themes of nationalism and culture like “Garuda” (Indonesia’s mythical bird) and “Barong” (lion). In its 15th year, the carnival also explored Indonesia’s rich biodiversity in “Ocean” and pondered the rampant forest fires in “Woods”.

Some designers even installed wires and aluminum plates onto their costumes to live up to a “Technocyber” theme.

The models showcased the costumes, which weighed between 15 and 40 kilograms, under the sweltering sun and occasional drizzle.

The audience in the VIP area and on the streets stayed until the end of the show and gave a round of applause.

Since its initiation, the Jember Fashion Carnival has evolved to become the main tourism attraction of East Java’s city of Jember. In contrast with the skimpy and revealing outfits featured in many other carnivals around the globe, costumes in the carnival are mostly full body — allowing many veiled women to participate in the event that took place in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world.

While the event has drawn an increasing number of visitors from year to year, the carnival has suffered a budget deficit in the past years, Dynand noted.

Last year, the carnival cost Rp 4.7 billion (US$357,200), but unfortunately only generated a few hundred million rupiah from ticket sales and funding from the Jember administration. The event organizer for 2015 had to bear all the losses and decided not to return this year.

As the result, Dynand and his team took the responsibility to manage the event this year. Dynand then tried to cut the budget by installing more modest tents for the audience.

Dynand said his team had not completed the calculation on the total spending, but estimated that the financial contributions from partners, ticket sales and the Rp 1 billion funding from the local administration would not be enough to cover the costs.

While implying his hope that the Jember administration would contribute more in the future, Dynand underlined that he did not want to dwell on the problems.

“I do not think much about the financial loss as long as this event has made a huge impact,” said Dynand, who was slated to accept the culture innovator award from the Education and Culture Ministry on Sept. 23.

“The visitors increased by one-and-a-half times from last year. It has brought billions of rupiah to the local economy,” he added

Throughout the event, the flights from East Java’s capital of Surabaya to Jember were packed, dozens of hotels in Jember were fully booked and a large number of cars and buses bringing in out-of-town tourists swarmed the small city.

But it turned out that the carnival’s achievements had gone beyond supporting the local economy. It gave a chance to young designers to showcase their creations and get into the national spotlight.

Most importantly, it gave a priceless experience to little girls and boys to walk the runway for the first time, in cute costumes prepared by their parents.

“It’s the fourth time for me to participate in the carnival” said Putri, a high school student who donned a red Barong-themed dress.

“I keep on returning because the event is so cool and helps me to learn new things.”

— Photo by Yuliasri Perdani

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