Call of duty preparing curriculum for fashion program under the Visual Communication Design department brought together me and Embran Nawawi along with my colleges at Petra Christian University where I work. The program will be opened in 2017 as well as the new building-called P2 on the west side of P building-operate next year..
During the conversation with the multi talented Embran I learnt a lot about fashion..the craft and textile graduate explained so much on how fashion design today should be brought to creative industry and that Indonesian designers should understand thoroughly about tradition or heritage to be on his/her work as an emphasis, not just as a banal creation..it has to have values.
And about the sustainability fashion as a theme for our fashion program, he opened my eyes that being ‘sustainable’ wasn’t only about economy or Eco design with zero waste and no chemicals added. It was beyond than that, for example batik coloring, batik with a good quality color tended to have a chemical processes behind it, the chemical mixing color would enhance the tint on batik, yet it’s more economical. Batik with natural dyeing such as black indigo or orange from Mengkudu fruit will be tagged for a higher price, yet to deliver it is surprisingly not environmental friendly at all. It could take many trees and other important natural resources to be cut and crushed just to dyeing very little amount of fabric, imagine how many trees and soils we destroy if we wanted to dye more material? He continued. Such information these ‘go green’ activists never share to us..after all this time I thought that being green was to stop using chemicals at all..I didn’t think that far, all I knew was the ‘propaganda’ of natural dyeing against the chemical one.’
Natural dyeing with black beanDip dyeing process
Anyway as for fashion design curriculum he told us to prepare with credible lecturers who knew well about fashion, it’s core concepts and trend forecasting, off course one of them would definitely be mas Embran himself, hehe…how cool is that to have him as a lecturer of fashion design Petra Christian University.
Embran Nawawi batik designer (C) shows new innovation of Maduranese stamp batik collection on October 1, 2013 in Surabaya, Indonesia. UNESCO give recognition and formally endorsed Indonesian Batik as a World Cultural Heritage on October 2, 2009 and the date used as the Batik Day. Courtesy of www.zimbio.com
My next task is to make a power point presentation, brought all the knowledge above-sustainable fashion, creative industry and traditional textile, include the curriculum on to the slides. I’m gonna make that very each slide bombastic, tantalizing and awesome enough so that the foundation will be more convinced to activate fashion design department soon.
It was Saturday cloudy morning, we had been planned to do DIY baby photo, utilizing simple materials like a mosquito net as a background and Christmas tree lights as the main light. We placed Oi on the-arm rested-sofa, meanwhile on the setting we also had ambient light from the window. We did some bracketing to get the right exposure and white balance as below
f/3.2 1/80 s Aperture Priority WB Manualf/3.2 1/50s WB Manual Aperture PriorityI grabbed and putted this doll on the sofa as a model before getting Oi on the set. My advice,make sure that everything was ready before you put your baby on the frame so that you can start to take picture quickly-baby tends to move fast and difficult to control.
I didn’t do the crowning thing on Oi’s head with the X’mas tree lights like I did the trial above, simply because it was almost impossible to do..as a result her face was softly lit as below.
This one is very contrast. The main light is coming from below, it renders her face sharply. The key is bracketing and some exploration, practice makes perfect!
It was fun to giving a short course to the teachers of GLORIA kindergarten how to make paper dolls,together with a friend of mine bu Maya. We made lots of characters like animals, plants, human or even a plane! The training would eventually help the kids to pour their creativity on to the paper as a media using their motor skills. They could use not only papers but any material they may find nearby.
The class went a little bit ‘out of control’ seemed we all forget that the craftsmanship should be made simple coordinated with the children’s skill, yet we made it too moderate because it was too fun to do-it brought out the ‘wild side of our self’- every person has his/her own character to make..hahaha
Again,posed with all the teachers and bu Kim,the headmaster
Time flew quickly as we kept making these easy figures again and again..
And it ended it up like this (pic below) pile of paper dolls..haha
Bu Maya and I Posed together with the ‘collection’
I couldn’t wait to come back here again, bu Kim and all the teachers treated us so well, these people worked systematically, thoroughly and full of effort that I believe the children are in a good hands. This is by far the most memorable service learning I’ve never forget! Talk to myself that time: “Oi this kindergarten is so cool, you’ll be studied here later when you 4.”
We were so excited that our-four and a half-baby girl Oi got baptized. It was Friday, on Christmas at the local church. We chose color white as the theme of our overall look as I picked for Oi, a ribbon headband and a pair of sneaker shoes both in pink to accentuate her ensemble.
Oi what are you looking at, honey?
Meanwhile our beloved best friend Jessica who miraculously given birth to baby boy not long after Oi-got her son-Reino baptized as well. we never thought it could be that coincidence. Unlike me had to continue my degree first in order to catch up my career, she had expecting baby long before I did. And the timing was perfect, God blessed us with these super cute babies.
With Jessica and Reino-sorry for the white balance, I tried to edit it but it was so bad , this is the best I could get by farOi got baptized with water by the preacherthanks Dad you took me this adorable picture. Oi was trying to support her neck at that time, hehe..pose together with Pak Budi PuspohadiBad White Balance 🙁
Fashion is neither just apparel or things that you wear, in this term accessories like necklace, bangles, earings, even glasses, more over it's seen as you entirely from head to toe, include your attitude. Fashion reflects your inner self, it's very you and personal..so whatever you are, when you apply it to your fashion, you let people see what are you deep inside implicitly. Then the "don't judge book by its cover" might not always be right.
