Uni Ria went on to declare that because the motives in her songket pieces were fully-customized, she maintains intense communication with the craftspeople. “My biggest challenge is that it takes a lot of patience to complete a single design – especially since so few workers have the skill to make songket.
We can’t afford to produce a lot, because there’s simply not enough human resources available to do the work,” she sighed. “We have a total of 50 workers to date, 30 songket weavers at the workshop.
Our craftspeople are both men and women, based in Pandai Sikek, Bukittinggi,” she reported.According to Uni Ria, her success in fashion is not merely about the ability to understand the market and predict the latest trend.
Her biggest achievement of the day is to encourage more Indonesian women to appreciate themselves and impact their surroundings more. At the end of our interview, Uni Ria expressed her hope that her works will inspire all women, especially Indonesian women, to be productive and creative no matter what.
“I started all these businesses from zero, until it becomes as big as it is now. Maintaining a business is all about intention, passion, and sales competitiveness, not just a matter of capital. We always need to show that we have something different from others to offer,” she said.
Uni Ria’s other major supporters include Diah Kusumawardhani, Founder of Belantara Budaya Indonesia, and Dave Tjoa, a renowned Cultural Observer.
Read: “Basundari, Kala di Wedari”, Ayu Dyah Andari’s
noble collaboration with Batik Trusmi
“Songket is an expensive work, because each masterpiece is carefully handmade,” Diah said. “To pay homage to such a fabric, the fashion show must be different from other shows. We will open it by showing a traditional Minang dance. The Minang people always start important events with a dance, and this is a perfect opportunity to showcase Minang culture in terms of dance and couture.”
Meanwhile, Dave believes that the event is an important moment for us all to share a part of Indonesia’s colorful culture to the world. “We will be sharing cultural insights about batik, tenun or hand weaving, and songket, because we want more of our young generations to fall in love with the huge variety of Indonesian textiles like we do,” he said. (des)