I arrived.....and then I left.

So 15 hours and 4 movies later I arrived. F.Y.I. Invictus ( can't believe I cried over a rugby match!), Crazy Heart (love Maggie Gyllenhaal), Twilight-New Moon (definitely still rooting for Edward although the werewolf one looks much better with short hair!) and something else I fell asleep to and can't remember. It was already dark when I got to Jakarta so didn't get a chance to really see the city. Went straight out to dinner with Oscars mother Reggy, and her husband Nick. Very warm and friendly people, then headed back to their house where I'm staying. Realised we had a very early start the next morning to catch a flight to Kupang in Nusa Tenggara region and went to bed. See below the badly photographed map of the island, mostly for my Dads benefit who will assume I don't know where I am! I do!

I'm on the island to the right of the picture in Kupang, the place with all the arrows coming from it.


The Island was chosen as a base to meet all the weavers from the region. We arrived on the Kupang in the afternoon and went straight to the venue where the weavers were starting to set up. There are 5 groups of weavers that had been chosen because of their particular specialities and also the fact that they are open minded about developing their fabrics. I will go into greater detail later about their different techniques but for now there are too many Indonesian words that I don't know how to spell and need to check with Oscar, probably easier just to show you some pictures.

We spent the rest of the afternoon discussing how we could develop their fabrics, mostly to make them lighter and softer as some of the weights can be too stiff and heavy to wear. We had brought them some new yarns to trial and handed them out with instructions on how to use them .As we were leaving they had a power cut at the centre. Amazingly this didn't stop the weavers and they just carried on by candlelight, see below!


Ikat weaver from Ende starting her warp


Kefa weaver setting up


Weaving by candlelight, looks lovely, not so great for the eyes


Tomorrow we return to see how the weavers have got on with their "homework"!

Goodbye London......Hello Jakarta!

As you may have guessed from the title, today I am traveling to Jakarta. I have been invited by the Indonesian fashion designer Oscar Lawalata to work with his local fabric producers in the Nusa Tenggara region to help improve the quality and structure of the fabrics that he uses.

It was a cold and rainy December evening in London when I received an email from the British Council asking me if I would be willing to take part in the project, as you can imagine, it took all of 2 seconds to accept!!

Last year Oscar won the British Councils International fashion entrepreneur award and came to London to accept the award, which is when I first met him. He is a fashion star in Jakarta, check out his beautiful website www.oscarlawalata.net. What is great about Oscar is that he is so enthusiastic about working with the Indonesian textile producers and has enormous respect for the heritage of the fabrics that they produce. I feel very honoured that he chose to spend his prize money on bringing me to Indonesia to work with the weavers

See below a selection of photos that Oscar sent me from the different weavers that we will be working with on the trip, so inspiring......

The lovely Oscar!


Reggy Lawalata, Oscars mother meeting one of the weavers from the Baun region. What a dude, the Sartorialist would love him!


Oscar with the weavers from Bena.


A tie-dyed warp...



The weavers of Sumba showing their collection of ikats, see why I was so happy to work on this project!


Weaver from Kefa laying out the warp



Looks amazing hey?! I will arrive in Jakarta on Sunday evening where I am staying with Oscars mother and on Monday morning we will leave for Nusa Tenggara to meet the first group of weavers. Very excited and a little bit scared, how do you improve on those fabrics?!! Have to finish packing now, see you in Jakarta......