Introduced through a webinar titled “How To Make Your Own Fashion Label,” JFH is intended to be a fashion center that brings together designers, creatives and fashion enthusiasts to drive sustainable growth in the Indonesian fashion industry.

JFH is located on Jl. Teluk Betung in Central Jakarta, and is equipped with a number of meeting, workshop and display rooms specifically designed to stimulate creativity in designing and building fashion-related businesses.

Visitors will be able to conduct meetings, have discussions, join workshops and do product photoshoots. They will also be able to find an array of viscose-rayon fabrics with various patterns provided by APR to support sustainable fashion, as well as getting the chance to see or even buy the works of designers showcased at the location.

“We believe the Jakarta Fashion Hub can become the meeting point for fashion enthusiasts, students, designers and business owners who are exploring their potentials and developing creative ideas to produce Indonesian made goods […] in line with President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s #BanggaBuatanIndonesia [proud of Indonesian made] campaign,” said APR director Basrie Kamba.

By functioning as a community hub, JFH will also help facilitate collaboration, which is crucial for the success of any business.

Elis Masitoh, the Industry Ministry’s director of the leather and footwear industry, highlighted the importance of collaboration within the fashion industry, in which local brands partner with Indonesian designers.

She also underlined the value of the Integrated Home of Fashion concept, an ecosystem in which the government, industry, academic institutions, designers and media lay at the foundation that supports industry workers and the development of technology to run the fashion and textile industry from upstream to downstream. The outcomes must then be promoted to domestic and international markets.

For this reason, the establishment of JFH is timely as it will encourage collaboration among fashion enthusiasts, creative workers and other stakeholders.

Didiet Maulana, fashion entrepreneur and founder of Ikat Indonesia, who was one of the speakers during the webinar, agreed that the time was right for JFH to materialize and encourage the younger generation to remain productive.

“I hope that JFH can serve as a meeting point for all practitioners in fashion, from designers to communities, so they can come up with innovations, [and I also hope] that [the place] can be well-maintained to further develop the industry,” said Didiet.

Opened in the time of a pandemic, JFH complies with the current health and safety protocols. Upon entering the building, all visitors are required to wear marks and will have their body temperatures checked. The venue also imposes physical distancing measures and provides hand sanitizer stations.

How to make your own fashion label

The creative economy, with fashion as one of its subsectors, has the potential to become the spearhead of economic growth, even during this unfortunate time of the pandemic, as was discussed during the third Everything Indonesia webinar series, themed “Make Your Own Fashion Labels – Bangga Buatan Indonesia”.

The event brought together speakers from the fashion and textile industry, such as Elis Masitoh, the Industry Ministry’s director of the leather and footwear industry; Josephine ‘Obin’ Kumara, founder of BIN House; Didiet Maulana, owner of IKAT Indonesia; Dana Maulana, cofounder of Danjyo Hiyoji; and Melinda Babyana, CEO of The Bespoke Fashion Consultant.

Elis said that Indonesia had the world’s third biggest integrated textile industry after China and India. She said that Indonesia was home to a textile industry that spanned from upstream to downstream, and from fiber to thread, fabric and fashion design.

“Our textile production had seen positive growth prior to the pandemic, but after the pandemic hit, the industry has suffered,” said Elis.

However, she added that even during the pandemic, textiles were still Indonesia’s fifth largest export, noting that there was still massive potential in the domestic market that had not been fully catered to by local brands and designers.

Nevertheless, Indonesia’s textile industry is ready to meet domestic needs, especially through companies such as APR.

Based in Pelalawan regency, Riau, APR is the largest integrated viscose-rayon producer in Asia.

Director of APR, Basrie Kamba, said the company was aware of Indonesia’s massive fashion market and was keen to take full advantage. Moreover, Basrie expressed confidence that APR was more than capable of providing locally made, sustainable viscose rayon as a textile material, and that the industry was ready from upstream to downstream.

“APR has produced viscose [rayon] with a TKDN [local content requirement] level of almost 100 percent that is sufficient for export and domestic needs, and young fashion designers will emerge,” said Basrie during the webinar.

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