I had a Skype tutorial with Vicky today ahead of the one on Thursday because I’m having a shoot on that day. So I explained most of the stuff I have in ideation and got the feedback: 1. Lookup for Super Impose, as they do a lot of experimental stuff and work closely with fashion 2. Remind Vicky to show me the project that Costa did for his final 3. Where all the stories involved in the project come from? Make and distribute job roles to individuals involved in the project 4. Try talking to Andrew, head of MA Journalism to get insights 5. Create a mindmap to have a clearer idea of what I want to do 6. Put all initial ideas on paper and try to create SWOT and competitor analysis from it
As for the job roles, I wish to become a creative director in the future so I decided to try to become one for this project. I have a team back home with their own roles, from producer to set designer to a journalist so their roles are fixed. I just need to find more artists to collaborate with that has the same concern and the aesthetic I desire for the project. The stories that I will bring up will come from Indonesian folklore and my subject’s experiences. As I want to create portrait interview, it will be about them and different aspects of their personalities.
As for the competitors, I found four that are potential but from the analysis, I think none of them are direct competitors.
While the target audiences are quite similar, Visionaire and We Indonesians Rule aim for general mainstream audiences. While Whiteboard Journal and Buah are more similar to whom I want to reach out to. None of them is specifically talking about the body, identity and representation neither experimenting with different media (until this writing is posted). The closest one is Buah, but since its focus is Indonesian diasporas, while I’m focusing on Indonesians who live in Indonesia.
For the focus of this project, I want to combine both topics from the units last term (enclothed cognition and nonconformist self-expression through fashion). But my aim is to become a creative director and I want to try creating different kinds of content–and the gap that I found is ‘space’–so I want to focus more on the ‘space’ issue. To create a desired ‘space’ for people to do self-expression.
I think I need to do more research as I have to define the idea more.
After quite some time, I’m thinking of approaching the issue of self-expression through space–creating a place for voices from Indonesia–via multimedia. I’m always interested in a different medium and one of the drives for me going to London is to learn different ways of producing media beside still and film. I’ll need to look for the academic support–but I had a talk with my cousin who’s a communication officer for the government and she’s very frustrated as our government still using a traditional approach to convey messages to the public. For example, my cousin is responsible to create a campaign for kids and teenager to snack fruits at school and at home. But instead of using fun visualization and familiar language with the target, they stick to a conventional, full of text campaign that no one will even bother to read. From there I was thinking of making an interactive media or website to make fashion and its discourse ‘easy’ and find to digest. So I ask my cousin to help me in some ways on journalism, as I trust her ability and if this is something that I’ll continue in the future it would be beneficial to have a partner that in the same interest.
So I contacted another friend back home to help me with website development, design and editorial. I told friends and collaborators from my past projects about the idea and asked for their hands so I got a good team in Indonesia. I plan on finishing the concept in May/June so the team can start the preparation before or right after I arrived in Jakarta.
A lot of ideas came to my mind, I want to highlight Indonesian who rarely but deserve to be in the spotlight. I want to reinterpret Indonesian folklores to contemporary media like editorial, fashion films or VR. I want to make a section on the website full of traditional clothes with fun editing (e.g. Yu-gi-Oh!, pokemon or Cardcaptor Sakura power cards) with interactive settings so reading the history of the clothing won’t be boring. I want to make documentation on big fashion event and identity, but more through the social and psychological approach. The discourse that I want to talk about will be around body, identity, subculture and representation.
So I did some research about the interactive website on Awwwards.com (an awards website for design, creativity, and innovation on the internet) to discover unique interactive websites that I can probably base on (and trust me this website is hella fun!! I played many games, read stories and stuff from on the websites listed).
This was a fun research and intermezzo in one place. I’m happy 🙂
Beside of website, I’m thinking of holding an exhibition in Jakarta to present the work as I’m trying to make it into different mediums so I think it would be better to set up the proper way to enjoy them. This will be a lot of work and I need more collaborators/partners to work with, as well as experts to make sure that I’m doing it the right way without appropriating the culture (as traditional attire often sacred to certain culture) and Kirk from DLL to help me with the pathway–what to learn, which one first, etc. Meanwhile, I’m also going to cooking the concept more.
For my final project, I decided to continue on my research proposal from the last term: self-expression within the conservative environment in Indonesia. I chose the topic as it’s closer to what I want to do in the future, which is documenting the voices from Indonesia. Enclothed cognition is also a good base, yet it requires a more scientific approach and big primary research. I don’t think I can carry that alone. But for the self-expression, I realised that the topic is still very wide, and I got some takeaways from Ellie: 1. Have a solid definition on introduction for words like ‘non-conformist’ and ‘self-expression’ how do I approach these words? 2. The words ‘alienated from society’ need further validation–how is it play as actual experience of my subjects and what is the source that will be providing substantial evidence on these grounds? 3. Primary research: the sample is quite small and I have to be aware of the risk of generalization towards the result 4. FGD will need a coherent pre-established format that can direct the process in a controlled way. 5. I need to acknowledge that this could also potentially manifest in the opposite way as a possibility for biased observations – and being prepared to address that is vital for the validity of the research outcome (I agree, right now I’m trying hard to see and judge it more objectively). So these are the point where I need to fix and improve for my final essay later.
Cover of ‘Anak Perempuan’ zine by Nadia Rompas (@nadiarompas)
So, this idea of self-expression came from some findings that I stumbled upon. The first one is a zine by an Indonesian female photographer, Nadia Rompas, called ‘Anak Perempuan’. I addressed the issue here on the blog before, about intergenerational femininity, gender stereotypes, and identity. How your mom has very different ideas about how you should dress, who you should date, where you should work. So the girls presented in the zine are the ones that have two appearances: their true identity and their identity in their mothers’ eyes. The frustration is there, but I feel the need to know the reason why they keep dressing the way their mothers want despite not liking it–is it respect? Love?
Brent Luvaas’ blog
The second one is from an essay that I did for critical research, Shooting street style in Indonesia: A photo essay (2014) by Brent Luvaas. He is a socio-cultural anthropologist that has been photographing street style for years and has vast knowledge on the condition in Indonesia due to his student exchange days in the country. Despite being one of a country with fast-growing fashion industry and–at that time–brimmed with innovative personal style blogger, Indonesia remains absent on the street style map of the world. Even the concept of street style itself is foreign and different from its counterpart in western countries. He found that the street style in Indonesia shifted to indoor, especially malls. I was also interested in this before reading the essay and did my secondary research on Japan. Harajuku flourished to be one of the most stylish street thanks to the ban of cars on the street, allowing people to hang around and build communities there. They have the street–the space to grow. While Indonesia, in history, never have a fixed place where fashion is centralized.
Today, with Fruits (Japanese bespoke street style magazine) decided to quit prints because there is a lack of ‘cool’ kids on the street, signalling the death of the legendary site. This happened because cars are now allowed to move on the streets, internet enabling people to look for information and communicate from afar and the invasion of fast fashion interrupted the once creative scene. Young people in Japan don’t have to go all the way to Harajuku to get cool stuff or meet people, they can do it from their home, with a tap from their fingers. The communities are now spreading across Japan, no longer concentrated in one place.
Looking in the global discussion today, I think that is also the case with most countries. For people who love fashion, the inspirations are now in the shape of a square that they can scroll, no need to go to the library or buy dozens of magazine–unless you’re studying or working or interested in the industry–and most people aren’t. The fast-fashion brands also provide them with the latest runway look. Fashion has become easy–it is no longer a privilege exclusive for the rich and stylish.
But to be fair, Indonesia doesn’t really have a big history of fashion. The country’s weather is hot all year, a lot of people belong to the middle and lower class that they don’t prioritize their appearances, and the fashion heavily influenced by western culture, as this video by ESMOD Indonesia shows:
We can say that Indonesia has its own style, to begin with–like traditional kebaya and main batik, then it changes in accordance with historical events and then to modern style with the disruption of film and music from Western culture.
Another issue that attracted me is the topic ‘how much is your outfit cost’ became such a hot issue in my country after an Indonesian Youtuber did it. The video exploded as the people in it wore millions to hundred millions of Rupiah worth of clothes and accessories. And that is one thing that people in my country like: what are the rich are wearing and the price of the thing (I swear this is not me judging I have evidence for this e.g. LINE, a messenger app in my country has an official account that update news every day and their headline news always–always–include an article about the cost of someone’s something or how luxurious someone’s house or party). I’ll probably need to find academic journals to further proof the assumption.
The video ‘BERAPA HARGA OUTFIT LO?’ (how much your outfit cost?) by Youtuber YOSHIOLO got 5 million views despite being the seventh part of the series. The people interviewed mostly wear luxury brands, showing their economics and social status.
Another Youtuber, Mundut Mustopa also create a similar content with people from middle to lower class, wearing mostly local brands.
Seeing this makes me rethink my concept of fashion and style. People have diverse motivation behind wearing certain clothes or embracing a particular style, whether it’s for their own comfort, symbolic status, etc. Is that what fashion right now? Symbolic status of a person? Then is it also part of self-expression? What is self-expression here?
I had discussions with some people back in Jakarta and a part of them have a distinct style like arms full of tattoo, colourful hair and one person who bleached his hair and shaved his eyebrows, shared me his experience. His name is Stephen, a short male model.
Stephen (@stephtanius)
When he decided to change his look drastically, a lot of people told him that they’re uncomfortable and he looked weird–especially in my country there’s a myth if you shaved your eyebrows you can see ghosts (which clearly not true)–people hated it. When he entered the modelling career, due to his height, he struggled to get into an agency as the industry still favour the tall models and his look made it worse– too distinct and the agencies afraid he won’t get any jobs. Glad that he gritted his way now as people become more welcome towards a unique look.
There is also a group of young fashion enthusiasts that come to We The Fest (a huge three-day summer music festival in Indonesia that has the concept of Coachella–where you dress to impress) every year with strong individual styles.
@xaditya_ and their friends garnered a lot of attention when the photos circulated on Twitter. People either hated or loved it. The ones who love it adore them for being brave on expressing themselves, the opposite reacted with disbelief because the ‘males’ were wearing feminine, colourful clothes and some even called them ‘banci’ (a harsh word, equals with effeminate or pansy).
Their looks are certainly uncommon in Indonesia. They especially don’t sit well with the conservative folks. As a Moslem my self, though not very devoted, I understand that Islam and some other religion perceived homosexuals as taboo and they probably felt disturbed seeing the photos. But to attack the group I think is not a good way to communicate. With street harassment and catcalling, and the internet also not being a fully safe space, do we need to create contents to make them understand? Can we provide a safe zone for anyone to feel free to show their identities? Of course now it’s better for queer communities and minorities to be open in the public, but can we really ensure their safety?
The last one I saw the emergence of a new movement–that demands traditional clothes to rise again. An account on Instagram called @remajanusantara_. It’s a lookbook-like account with pictures of youth in Indonesia mixing traditional and modern, contemporary clothing.
I think it’s interesting because these youth are trying to make traditional cool again. They’re trying to look for a silhouette and identity unique to Indonesia. Yet this, along with topics that I explained before, rarely–almost none!–got highlighted or studied. There is only one zine I found named Buah (literally means fruit) made by an Indonesian diaspora, Teta, who lives in the US. She made it in order to connect with other Indonesian diasporas in different countries. Teta gave these people a corner to voice the Indonesian afar from home, how their heritage still attached to them even though they’re thousands of miles away.
Buah shows that with the help of the internet, we can connect and be vocal on issues of our own culture. This is in contrast with the shift–the street, the space–to the virtual sphere, has made Indonesia’s fashion scene grown bigger and bigger yet the documentation is very little. I wonder why and what can I do to fill this gap? I hope at the end of this unit I can find an answer to this.
