“For the whole years at Academy I feel like a person with the whole of personal search”

-Can you explain about yourself and background of your brand? How did you come to establish the label?

I come from Indonesia; I studied at Royal academy of fine arts Antwerp.
We establish the label legally actually just now. But I started presenting my collections already in fall 2007 collections in Paris and Milan fashion week.

-Can you explain latest 10 S/S Collection (Concept, where you are inspired)?

I always started my idea or concept based on what i feel and what is in my head or what is happening around me. Because of course the collections always reflect what is in my thoughts and what is happening in the world today.

And for this summer collection my thoughts is on my friends. Some of my friends that I found trouble finding a way to metaphors their great talents into back to the essence of what are we here for in our position as a designer.
In a way, to protect something that you believe is something that I honor and admire. And in other way to be trapped by something great, is like living in a bird cage.

And I started with the idea of medallion as a symbol of my respect to the believes, but trapped on an architectural black jet bird cage. Movement and energy in the work to operate among a side. A journey that create a view that you can`t see unless you jump.

-How did you develop yourself during your life in Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp? How was it changed your design?

Living and study in Antwerp for me is very important. Since there is almost nothing to do in Antwerp because the city is so silent, at least for me, I can establish my way of thinking, engineering to form a space of my mind.
For the whole years at Academy I feel like a person with the whole of personal search. Challenge for what it is to be a person, to be a man, to be a woman, to be a designer. in addition of working on those problem through the pieces of fashion. Challenge the idea of what is it means to be avant-garde with really focus on my pieces.
It never changes my design, but make me sharp to form movement of my mind circulations.

-How would you describe your customer? What do you think your fans seek in your accessories?

All my thoughts after all this time is to create something beautiful, that are new, that are clever and exciting. It is more into what I can do for people. To make my customer to be a whole person with a lot of deep thoughts, smart and powerful. And I always believe if I make something with all my thoughts, automatically energize to the pieces. But of course I always struggle the whole times to do something new, to do some movement, to express more contradiction in these little pieces that i make.
I don`t know if I’m succeed, but I hope people who wear my pieces feel all this energy.
-You used to study designing clothes, why did you decide to launch accessories? Are you planning to launch clothes adding to accessories?

I`m very much enjoyed working on my jewelry line for the moment. What is excited me is with this little space that I have, it challenge me to go even more further and far more further from here with all my pieces that I create. I`m not closing the possibilities to launch the clothing line, we want to do it, but we want to do it right. At the right time and at the right moment.

-Do you find Indonesian roots in your design?

My attachment to my roots, searches for my lost childhood, this mythical time of my childhood from where is my henceforth exiled. I haven’t gone home more than 5 years now. I’m very much homesick for the last 2 years.
But I think that my homesickness has another source. It’s not the past that I idealized.
My wish: that anywhere -whether I changes continents, cities, loves – I could find my native land, the one where life is born, is reborn. My Nostalgia carries the desire, less for an unchanging eternity than for always fresh beginnings.
Thus time that passed and destroys tries to take away the ideal figure of a place that remains. My roots are one of the metaphors of my life.

-Do you view fashion design as a means of expressing yourself?

The value of fashion is to find the aesthetic of the moment, and what I feel for the moment the aesthetic of my thoughts.
For me designing is a way to letting people discover what you want to speak in your own words.
And again here we are talking about jewelry, dresses, pants, skirt; and we talking about the idea of the world. Maybe sound really stupid. But actually we living in the world and you put all your thinking in your work. I`m dealing with such a little form, jewelry, and I have to express all my idea to a very limited context, this is the most exciting part of my job.

-How do you describe characteristic of your style which makes it difference from others? What made you want to become a designer?

I believe that people work in different way, different mind and thoughts and i think that automatically make a difference from my work with others.
I always interested with a beautiful things, beautiful floor, beautiful chair, beautiful clothes, and beautiful object. And I choose fashion. Because to do fashion for me is more difficult and challenging.

-Is there any designers or person that had a strong influence of your work?

I appreciate a lot of people; either they are scientist, architect, musician, politician, designer, artist, and cook … the whole value of the moment among other.
But when I work on my pieces, I played with my own mind. I’m the judge of myself.

-You have collaborated with many designers such as John Galliano, Dries Van Noten and Taro Horiuchi. What is collaboration mean to you?

The most interesting part of doing collaboration is the part when you speak for hours discussing about one little part of the pieces. The attractions of dealing with different way of thinking with the person i collaborate with are the most exciting part.

-How do you see your brand developing over the next few years?

It never is my concern to make the brand big. My concern is always what i can do more to make the pieces more beautiful. And make the people who wear my pieces become a stronger, full of thoughts and to be a powerful clever and exciting beauty. to be the beauty to have a voice.

Interview & Text:Masaki Takida