Word: indonesianness
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...China, hosted a side meeting of rainforest nations, where they called for forest protections to be a larger part of Kyoto's successor agreement when negotiations start in Bali. (Deforestation is responsible roughly 20% of global carbon emissions.) "There is no better chance than in Bali to act decisively," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told delegates at the close of the summit...
...summits. To Obin, the fabric means glamour. It means stunning models sashaying down the catwalk to the music of James Brown. It suggests beautiful people and exclusive parties. How else could it be for this 52-year-old fashion designer, who is single-handedly responsible for dragging the ancient Indonesian craft into the arena of contemporary fashion...
...First created during the Mataram kingdom in the 17th century, batik has been historically appreciated throughout the Indonesian archipelago, but especially by the people of central and eastern Java, where the technique of wax-resist dyeing originated. In recent decades, though, batik has gone into crisis: handworked cloth simply cannot compete in price with mass-produced printed textiles. Changes in the manufacture of batik - with several assembly-line workers now robotically completing individual stages that were once handled by a single highly skilled artisan - have also diminished the cloth's allure. Government support has become essential to the industry...
...Obin's conservation strategy involves aiming high. She courts an A-list clientele, which includes the Indonesian capital's top socialites, tycoons and politicians, as well as visiting celebs like Mick Jagger and Julia Roberts. She also sells her work through a smattering of high-end boutiques in Europe, the U.S., the Middle East and Japan. Samples of her fabrics hang in museums in Amsterdam, Sydney and Japan...
...Credit Obin's multicultural childhood for her ability to design across borders. Of Chinese-Indonesian ethnicity, she grew up in Hong Kong and first became aware of clothing and style through watching laborers on the Wanchai docks in their baggy cotton pants, or the British businessmen in summer suits. "Hong Kong is a visual feast and I think I took a lot of that back to Indonesia," she explains...