Jakarta :   Jakarta Fashion Week 2014 (www.jakartafashionweek.co.id), the largest fashion week in Southeast Asia, opens its fourth day featuring two Japanese labels Somarta and Motonari Ono, the first foreign designers to walk the runaway of the event’s main tent this year around. Unlike the previous five times, JFW, which always feature foreign designers as the main opening act, decided to emphasize local young emerging designers this year.

“In essence, JFW is all about development. We want to elevate the local fashion industry to an international level and gradually treat Jakarta as the new fashion capital in the region,” says Svida Alisjahbana, the chairwoman of the organizing committee of JFW.

JFW this year was opened by featuring the creation of a number of local designers who were part of a special incubation program conducted together with the British Council and the London-based Centre for Fashion Entreprise (CFE). The program, which receives full support from Indonesia’s Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry, is called Indonesia Fashion Forward. Labels which were chosen to open JFW included Major Minor, Jeffrey Tan, Tex Saverio and several Moslem wear labels such as Nur Zahra and Jenahara. Of this group, Tex Saverio recently participated at the Paris Fashion Week as part of the official calendar.

Day two’s highlight was the event conducted by the Indonesian edition of Grazia Indonesia which featured fashion lines run by celebrities which included the one run by the rock star Ariel, who was recently released out of prison following a public controversy in which he appeared in a series of illicit videos on the internet. A number of leading local fashion schools also participated at the event featuring the creations of its best and brightest talents.

The highlight of day three was a batik collection created by one of Indonesia’s leading fashion maestros Edward Hutabarat in a show which was held by Indonesia’s leading fashion monthly Dewi Magazine.

This year, Jakarta Fashion Week 2014 is supported by Bank Mandiri, Senayan City, L’Oreal Professionnel, The Body Shop, Matahari Department Store, Bellini, Juara Skincare, Mazda Motor Indonesia, 5aSec, You C Vitamin Water, Tiger Air Mandala, Acer, and C’s Nail Academy.

Source : ACN Newswire