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Denica Riadini-Flesch becomes second Indonesian fellow in Cartier Women’s Initiative
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SukkhaCitta founder and CEO Denica Riadini-Flesch (center) with craftswomen. The artisans are provided training and business skills under the Rumah SukkhaCitta Foundation’s craft schools.
D
enica Riadini-Flesch, founder of homegrown fashion label and social enterprise SukkhaCitta, has been named as a fellow in the 2023 Cartier’s Women Initiative.
Established in 2006 by the French luxury jeweler and watchmaker Cartier, the Cartier Women’s Initiative is an annual international entrepreneurship program that aims to drive change by empowering women impact entrepreneurs and providing them with the necessary financial, social, and human capital support to grow their business and leadership skills.
The program is open to women-run and women-owned businesses from any country and sector that aim to have a strong and sustainable social and/or environmental impact.
To date, the Cartier Women’s Initiative has supported 298 women impact entrepreneurs from 63 countries and awarded a total of US$ 7,440,000 in grant funding to support their businesses, all driven by a common conviction: solving the most pressing global challenges.
For the 2023 edition, Cartier has introduced new regional and thematic awards to its outstanding program, while also increasing its grant funding and raising the total number of fellows to 33, the highest number yet.
“Women have always had a pivotal role at Cartier, who has actively supported women entrepreneurs for more than16 years. We are thrilled, this year, to further expand our recognition of changemakers across the world with our two new regional awards and our new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award,” said Cyrille Vigneron, President and CEO of Cartier International.
This year’s program features a total of 11 awards, comprising nine regional awards and two thematic awards. The 33 fellows selected represent the top three businesses for each of the awards.
The first-place awardees will take home US$ 100,000 in grant funding, while second and third-place awardees will receive US$ 60,000 and US$ 30,000 respectively. To facilitate this, the total grant funding per edition has increased to US$ 2 million, its largest amount yet.
In addition to the grant funding, all 33 fellows will also benefit from tailored mentoring and coaching, media visibility, networking opportunities and education courses from leading business school INSEAD.
The first-place awardee of each of the 11 awards will be announced during the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards Ceremony, held on May 10 in Paris.
Aligned with this year’s theme of “Forces for Good”, the ceremony will reflect the ambition to evolve the Cartier Women’s Initiative program to drive collaborations and effect change on a systems level. This aligns with Goal 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, "Partnerships for the Goals", for fostering partnerships and recognizing the power of collaboration.
For the first time, the Cartier Women’s Initiative has recognized women impact entrepreneurs from Armenia, Bulgaria, Dominican Republic and Singapore. In addition, the 2023 Cartier Women’s Initiative marks the first time Southeast Asia has taken two out of three spots for the South Asia and Central Asia categories.
Change, one wardrobe at a time
Denica is the second Indonesian fellow in the history of the Cartier Women’s Initiative, preceded by Lianna Gunawan of La Spina Collections who was a Laureate in the 2012 edition.
In an interview with The Jakarta Post, Denica said she was “one of the least fashionable people you’ll ever meet” and that SukkhaCitta was not born from a desire to open a fashion business.
“As a development economist, my work took me through villages in Indonesia. There, for the first time, I met these women who are still making fabrics by hand. My work had a lot to do with community development and alleviating poverty, but I started realizing what these women need is not aid,” she said.
“As someone who was working in the aid industry, it was such an eye-opener: what they need is actually work. They have the skills, they have this amazing tradition, but they are living in poverty.”
Denica contrasted the heartbreaking sight of the women working tirelessly to make batik in their kitchens with a typical view of a regular Friday in Jakarta, where office workers tend to wear batik pieces. Most, she continued, pay little to no attention to who made the fabrics and its impact, noting that 98 percent of garment workers globally do not earn a living wage.
“We take for granted that things appear in stores, and never ask where it came from.”
Established in 2016, SukkhaCitta bills itself as an antithesis to the rapid pace of fast fashion, rejecting trends in favor of handcrafted staples and statement pieces cut from natural fabrics and dyes.
According to Denica, SukkhaCitta’s collections are linked to the educational progress of the women in Rumah SukkhaCitta Foundation’s schools.
For example, if they are currently learning to create natural fuchsia dye, then the label will launch a collection featuring the dyes as soon as they have mastered the craft. In another case, if the Sappan wood used to create red dyes are no longer in harvest, then production for the items that use the dye will stop.
“It’s like following the seasons of the earth, as opposed to making the earth follow your seasons.”
At the same time, SukkhaCitta champions ethical practices in its production process, becoming the first fashion company in Indonesia to receive B Corp certification in 2022. With an overall B Impact Score of 95.3, SukkhaCitta was also named B Corp Best for The World™️: Community in the same year, scoring in the top 5 percent of their size group for their efforts in the community.
For Denica’s dedication to her values and efforts, the honor of being named a fellow in the Cartier Women’s Initiative has been meaningful, as she feels Indonesia has little to no representation in international discussions regarding sustainability.
“Receiving this award really made me feel that we are given a voice, that we are able to tell all the stories, and that people are listening. I was trained as an economist, but through my work, the [women] changed my life.
“They taught me what matters in life, they taught me a different way of doing things. They taught me that our constant pursuit of more is not always better, and I wish their stories would be heard by more people. This Cartier award, for me, is meaningful because it provides exactly that,” she concluded.
