For Research Methods unit, I decided to continue on my study proposal: to create a space for individuals, Indonesian youth to be exact, to do self-expression.
Self-expression and representation is an important discourse in my country right now, particularly for the younger generation. As a conservative country with a Moslem majority, people are not very welcome to the new wave of youth; individuals who express themselves differently–whether through clothes, body image, sexuality, etc.
I followed the study proposal at first, looking at what makes a ‘fashion capital city’ from the book Fashion Cultures Revisited.
In the Fashion Cultures Revisited, there’s a paragraph that talked about how the fashion on the street moves to the catwalk. The liveliness of street style affected the style on the runway. That is also one thing that Indonesian doesn’t have: the street in street style. Besides the hot weather, we barely have any pavement to walk on. You can see sidewalk on a big street or business area. But it’s nonexistent on the others. We have a lot of backstreets as well, sometimes only the size of a motorcycle or a person. Pedestrian often walk with motorcycles or bump to street vendors. Our fashion is happening inside the building; malls, cafes, events, or the most pivotal one: the internet. I had worked as a writer on a teen fashion magazine in Jakarta before and I had to fill the street style column by looking for teens with ‘style’, and I found all of them inside malls and fashion event–never on the street. This argument also supported by an essay by Brent Luvaas called “Shooting Street Style in Indonesia: A Photo Essay”. Luvaas found it difficult to photograph ‘street style’ cause it’s hard to discover ‘cool’ people on the street. Thus the definition of ‘street style’ in Indonesia became blurry too.
Examples of the streets in Jakarta
Another thing I noticed as a hurdle is how hard it is to get academic research on fashion–specifically on the topic sociology on fashion. I tried the e-source from UAL but mostly saw about modest fashion, e-commerce, and business side of fashion in Indonesia. So I only have a few resources that I can rely on.
The internet exposed Indonesian youth to different styles or forms of self-expression yet they’re niche compare to the vast population. Individuals who dare to challenge the mainstream current is called nonconformist. I decided that the keyword for my research is ‘millennials and gen z nonconformist self-expression through fashion in Jakarta’. But nonconformist here still have a broad definition, that is why I try to narrow it down by demographic: half millennials and gen Z who live in Jakarta. The conformist should be defined too because depending on the social group or geography, they can change. I can narrow it down by industry (one of my respondents is a rapper and he usually performs in office working attire–shirt and structured trouser–while most people in the community wear oversized, baggy clothes), religion (especially for women who chose to not wear hijab), or social. I still can’t decide which to focus on. I am interested to look at the issue on Moslem conform since it’s the most apparent (you have to cover yourself, can not have tattoo(s), prohibited to change your body parts, etc) but it will be very liberal and I need a lot of strong backups regarding the topic as it’s a sensitive one.
I still have a long way to go to discover my specific research topic but I feel like I’m getting there.