Bali’s designer revolution
When Sydney designer Kerry Grima first moved to Bali 19 years ago, fashion was defined by the cheap rip-offs, sarongs and Bintang Beer t-shirts favoured by budget travellers who kicked off mass tourism to the Indonesian island.
Today, t-shirts bearing vulgar slogans such as Give Me Head Til I’m Dead still sell for as little as 20,000 rupiah (A$2.40) at Kuta’s dusty stalls. But Bali’s reinvention as an upmarket destination is giving rise to a new brand of high-street chic.
Just a few kilometres north of Kuta, trendy Seminyak’s air-conditioned, fixed-price boutiques act as showrooms for designers like Grima, who take part in international catwalk parades in Hong Kong and London, and export to high-end boutiques in New York, Paris, Sydney and St Tropez.
In the world’s top cities, the designers’ pieces sell alongside top global labels for thousands of dollars. And now in Bali, prices are reaching new, and previously unthinkable, heights.
Party frocks sell for several million rupiah while handbags from accessories designer Sabbatha go for up to 15 million rupiah ($A1,825).
Bali fashion has reached new heights on every level: quality, technique, availability of colours and fabrics, Grima says.
It’s been a rags-to-riches journey for the former fashion teacher, who launched his signature label on the resort island seven years ago.
He says he nearly went bust after an American associated copied his designs and snared his main buyers.
But Grima bounced back and now has four stores in Bali, supplies exclusive boutiques in Melbourne, Sydney, the US, Europe and Saudi Arabia. And he’s just signed his first deal with a major buyer, UK department store chain Harrods, where he says a hand-embroidered silk shawl will sell for more than STG1,000 ($A2,370).
Grima’s success story is echoed by dozens of other Bali-based designers, both international and domestic, who are unveiling collections this week at Indonesia’s only major catwalk show, Bali Fashion Week, now in its seventh year.
Australian-Brazilian designer Made de Coney has become one of the island’s hottest names since launching her Lily Jean label three years ago.
She now has her own factory, four stores in Seminyak, and accounts with boutiques in Australasia and Europe.
The 28-year-old largely attributes the fashion scene’s transformation to a change in the mix of tourists coming to Bali.
“Before, people were mostly exporting because they were paranoid of being copied,” says de Coney, who was born on the island.
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/
Add comment November 26th, 2007