TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
YouTuber Baim Wong apologizes for effort to trademark ‘Citayam Fashion Week’
After a barrage of backlash, YouTuber Baim Wong has withdrawn his application to trademark the name of the Jakarta fashion event.
Change Size
About face: Baim Wong has apologized for his attempt to trademark the phrase “Citayam Fashion Week”. (Kompas) (Kompas/Kompas)
A
em>After a barrage of backlash, YouTuber Baim Wong has withdrawn his application to trademark the name of the Jakarta fashion event.
YouTuber Baim Wong has said he will no longer seek to trademark the phrase “Citayam Fashion Week” following backlash from the public and certain notable figures, including Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil.
Baim, who is best known for he and his wife Paula Verhoeven’s YouTube channel, has put out statements on social media in recent days claiming that his effort to trademark the phrase was not driven by business ambition.
In a YouTube video published on Tuesday, he said he had not wanted the move to cause controversy and that he and his wife had simply wanted to support the event.
On July 20, Baim had filed an application with the Law and Human Rights Ministry to trademark the phrase “Citayam Fashion Week” under the company PT Tiger Wong.
“Citayam Fashion Week is not mine. It’s theirs, it’s Indonesia’s. I just had the vision to make Citayam Fashion Week more than just a trend, a legal event that isn’t seasonal. Most importantly, it can boost Indonesia’s fashion to the world,” Baim wrote on his personal Instagram account on Monday.
Citayam Fashion Week is a blanket term used to refer to spontaneous gatherings of young Indonesians, mostly teens, in the public spaces of Sudirman, South Jakarta. Participants put on fashion shows wearing outfits that are, for the most part, inexpensive but creatively customized.
As the event has become increasingly popular, more and more public figures have latched onto it, which some participants say has changed it from an impromptu, creative gathering to a more corporatized trend.
Like a number of such public figures belonging to a more luxury fashion crowd, Baim said he wanted to put Citayam Fashion Week on a grander stage. He also claimed he didn’t have any intention of profiting from the event.
The YouTuber said he held no grudge against those who had “misunderstood” his actions as being motivated by greed.
“I don’t blame and have no grudge against anyone – really I don’t. In the name of Allah, not at all,” Baim said.
He said he had not, at first, realized that Citayam Fashion Week was part of the public domain.
“Right after the explanation [that it was, in fact, in the public domain], I immediately understood, because Harajuku in Japan isn’t owned under any intellectual property rights either; it’s public domain,” he said, referring to an area of Shibuya, Tokyo, that is also known for its fashion gatherings.
