Then it was local hero Albert Yanuar’s turn to take to the stage: tasked with the responsibility of working with South Korean motifs, Yanuar looked to the lotus flower for inspiration. Representing the South Korean “respect for nature which has long been inscribed into traditional Korean patterns,” this floral motif appears on floor-length dresses alongside the tulle-type material we see in the traditional Korean hanbok.
But I think Yanuar had the most fun while working with a Hangul print designed by South Korean designer Lie Sang Bong. His creativity shone when he designed clothes that reflected the duality of Korean culture through rapid transformation, and I mean that in the most literal sense possible! The real highlight of this sequence basically happened whenever the models stopped walking halfway down the catwalk to undo buttons or pull skirts apart to reveal entirely different outfits: boxy jackets were turned inside-out to reveal reversible patterns and knee-length cocktail dresses transformed into floor-length gowns. His pièce de résistance was the transformation of a knee-length number into a column dress complete with outerwear. The audience lapped it all up and rewarded the final looks with gleeful grins and roaring applause.
This was most definitely one of my favorite shows at Jakarta Fashion Week for the way it demonstrated how fashion is not a one-way street and that there is room for multiculturalism on the catwalk. Let’s hope that the success of this show will encourage more exchanges of this sort.
Don’t forget that you can still check out more photos from Jakarta Fashion Week at the Clozette Daily microsite!
