Rumah Senayan: A Lookbook

With these different cultures and habits, came along different ways of dressing. My house has never been empty, I’ve grown up always surrounded by my family. For the most part, it was my grandpa, my parents, and my brother. Spending so much of my life, I’ve noticed the way they dress has always been so different from each other.

We all grew up in different times. I have lived in Jakarta my whole life, exposed to modern life and western influence because of the community I grew up in. While my brother grew up in both Bandung and Jakarta in the 90s, more or less with the latest trends, in all his pictures he looked like a normal, young boy during his time, never really dressed specially, it was the same like any other young boy. My mother, on the other hand, was born in Bandung in the 70s, she went back and forth Bandung and Jakarta, but was very keen on fashion trends during her time. My grandfather, in the 1940s, was very lively and had a really ‘western’ lifestyle, until now. On the other hand, my dad grew up on the other side of the island in Semarang, living very traditionally.

Recently, I dug out a bunch of junk and found archives of my grandma, a big box full of fabrics and clothes. It reminded me about how during the summer of 2020, I wanted to improve my skills in sewing and become at least decent at sewing. So I had a moment of realization, even if I didn’t really bother with what I was wearing, why would I waste the opportunity of being able to create my own clothes?

Then on, I decided that my personal project will be to design and produce pieces of clothing for teenagers which are reflected by my family, and then showcasing the story and clothes through a look book. Something like this is important to me, because it embraces the diversity a family has. Especially that each piece is unique because it’s inspired by a different person in my family.

Global Context

This project suits best under the global context of Identities and Relationships, mostly because it explores the characters of one's bloodline, and the relationship between them, and their self-expression during their younger years. Identity is an essential part of this project since knowing yourself and who you are corresponds to identifying the heritage you belong to. Heritage/tradition is something passed down from a group of people, most of the time it’s a blood-related family, to their predecessors. Relationships between oneself and their culture is very much important in the discovery of who you are as an individual. This part is essential in the global context as understanding yourself and having a good relationship with your own identity will affect other factors. Point is that the global context of ‘Identity and Relationships’ is being highlighted in this project because of several factors mentioned before. With this, I hope that it will galvanize people to dig into their culture and be in-tune with their heritage in order to have a good relationship with themselves.

Product

My plan was to create 4 clothing pieces that ‘reflected’ my family members, and then to create a lookbook showcasing those pieces along with background information about those pieces. At the end of the day, I was able to deliver a satisfactory outcome of my plans. However, the process took longer than expected and some of the results weren’t as exorbitant as expected. Even if so, I think that the product still represents my close family members well enough, because these pieces were solely inspired by their old photographs, and then improvised to fit my perception.

I created 4 different clothing pieces from scratch. The first piece I made was a purple collared shirt, which was supposed to reflect my brother in his prime childhood years, which was back in the 90’s. For that piece I took inspiration from one picture of him and improvised by creating a new design and adding some more patterns. The next piece I created was the white blouse I had made to reflect my dad’s prime years, it was one of the simplest pieces I have made, but I think it reflected his simplicity and nature. The third clothing piece I created were ‘work’ pants which reflected my grandpa, the pants were very simple but I think that there’s a further analysis to it. The final piece of clothing I made was a dress that looked very youthful and very trendy for the 70s, which was based off of my mother in her youth.

The lookbook itself is very simple in design and not too long-winded. Each page contains the analysis of every piece and story behind it, along with my perception about my family members. They also feature the chosen pictures I took most of my inspiration from. I think the design is mediocre, it isn’t extraordinary but it isn’t horrible either. There are several shots of myself wearing those pieces that are displayed in the lookbook as well.

Read my lookbook below!

Reflection

Overall, I think this project has done wonders rather than losses because throughout this whole project, I have learnt a lot. Personal Project taught me to grow and learn as a person and a student. This helped me realize how important it was to focus on priorities and manage time well. It was easy to get lost in time and to lose focus, especially when the situation is not at its most comfortable state, (ex. pandemic adjustment, grief, etc.). Even if there were bumpy roads during the process, I was still able to pull through and get a grip on life. This enforcement on myself made me grow as a student and realise that school is just as important as other things, the existence of Personal Project pushed my limits.

One of the most relevant ATL skills was the communication skills, whether it be in my reports, lookbook, and between individuals. In the report and lookbook, it was important to get my point across clearly, ensuring there were no misunderstandings between me and the reader. While between individuals I interacted with, it was required that we talked clearly so that there would not be any mistakes.

As a person, I was happy that I chose to do this project, even though I had some doubts along the way. Sewing was something that I have always wanted to work on willingly, and by incorporating this willingness into my required school project, it gave me a sense of importance and priority to it. I have never really mentioned that my grandma, who has passed, was very skilled at sewing. Through this project, it made me feel like I was closer to my family and part of my coming-of-age story.

IB Learner Reflection

Carrying out this project, it has highlighted a few of the IB Learner profiles. One of the main profiles was reflective. The content and the whole concept required me to be a reflective student because I needed to look at my roots and my family. I had to look into a lot of things about my family, the concept, I think, was also quite deep, it took me some time to dig out all those feelings and perceptions about my family members. Writing everything down was kind of a hard thing to do, which is why the second IB learner profile is to be a communicator. Being a communicator, I tried my best to express how I felt and what I thought into words which had to be written on the lookbook.

It was not the best experience, and I could definitely improve my writing skills. Other than just writing down how I felt, I needed to convey the meaning I put into my clothing. It also required me to be an open-minded person. Mostly because I needed input from my peers and also because of the background my family had. They all had different situations when they grew up, and still have very different personalities. In order to take this all in, I had to be open-minded and accepted that it was not fictional, that these things were the life my family had before me.