Indonesian Fashion Week: Turning Indonesia into Global Fashion Center?
Within the creative economy industry, the fashion sector of Indonesia is the second-largest contributor to the country's gross domestic product (GDP), after culinary. At the opening of the fourth Indonesian Fashion Week, Indonesian Tourism Minister Arief Yahya stated that fashion contributes IDR 200 trillion (USD $15.6 billion) to the country’s GDP. The Indonesian Fashion Week, organized by the Association of Indonesian Fashion Designers (APPMI), is part of an ambition to turn Indonesia into a world center for fashion by 2025.
Organized in the Jakarta Convention Center (between 26 February and 1 March 2015), the Indonesian Fashion Week displays over 747 Indonesian top fashion brands in various categories, which include women’s wear and men’s wear. Apart from exhibition and fashion shows, the event also includes a business to business (B2B) session allowing for sellers to meet foreign and domestic buyers. The event further includes seminars, talkshows, a workshop, and design competitions. The organizers of the Indonesian Fashion Week expect to attract 100,000 tourists.
The event features 2,522 fashion collections from 230 Indonesian and foreign designers (including from Japan, Australia, South Korea, and India) and 32 fashion shows during the four days. Among Indonesia’s top designers displaying their fashion products are: Poppy Dharsono, Anne Avantie, Lenny Agustin, Bintang Mira, Itang Yunasz, and Ivan Gunawan.
At roughly IDR 600 trillion, Indonesia’s creative economy accounts for about seven percent of the country’s GDP. The most important sector within the creative economy industry is culinary, accounting for about 30 percent of the creative economy’s value. Next comes fashion, then comes craft, printing and design.
Minister Yahya believes that Indonesia can become an important global player in fashion, particularly Muslim clothes (Indonesia contains the world’s largest Muslim population), which he calls "modest fashion".