Oscar Lawalata collaboration with Justin Smith at Jakarta Fashion Week 12
Oscar Lawalata collaboration with Justin Smith at Jakarta Fashion Week 12

Oscar Lawalata (International Young Creative Entrepreneur 2008 Fashion winner) and Justin Smith’s (UK YCE Fashion Winner) collaboration on the runway at Jakarta Fashion Week 2012. © British Council.

The collaborations project attracts designers from the UK and Indonesia to develop innovative fashion work.

Through collaborations between UK and Indonesian fashion desginers, new collections were created and showcased on the runway at Jakarta Fashion Week. These collaborations allowed us to introduce two different yet complementary ways of working with an international audience.

In 2011, Oscar Lawalata collaborated with Laura Miles, an experienced textile desinger, empowering contact with local crafts people in Indonesian and opening doors to new materials and ideas.

In 2012, Justin Smith (Young Creative Entrepreneur Award winner in the UK) made use of his YCE Award grant to travel to Indonesia and work together in collaboration with Indonesian fashion designer Oscar Lawalata. This resulted in a collection that was shown on the fashion runway during Jakarta Fashion Week 2013.

The collaborations where highly celebrated by the media, fashionistas and influential fashion buyers.

This programme is continually seeking out for new proposals and opportunities.

More about the collaborations

Justin Smith and Oscar Lawalata: The work of Oscar and Justin was inspired by the weaving techniques of the cloths and art crafts in Sintang and Yogyakarta. They blended in with the local citizens and studied the traditional techniques, using natural materials such as mendong, serat batang, pisang, akar wangi, lidi, tali agel, eceng gondok, bamboo and pandan. 

Oscar and Justin also tried to dive into the local culture, so they can transfer the psychological and social aspects of the heritage into their designs, transforming them into innovative and futuristic pieces to encapsulate the modern eyes while preserving the traditional roots of the design.

Laura Miles and Oscar Lawalata: The two worked with hundreds of traditional weavers to revamp traditional Ikat weaving, which despite its beauty are often too heavy for contemporary fashionwear. They also worked with traditional silk weavers in Garut, West Java. 

This resulted in a new collection of 67 thinner and lighter dresses, tunics, and skirts, which left the Indonesian press and online blogs gushing.

See also

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