Indonesia Fashion Week opened its 14th edition at the Jakarta Convention Center in Senayan on July 29, 2026, running through August 3 under the theme "Ulos Simetria" — a title that placed ulos, the handwoven textile associated with Batak communities of North Sumatra, at the center of the country's largest fashion platform. What followed on the runway was less a tribute than an argument about how a heritage cloth should function in a working wardrobe.
Poppy Dharsono, president of Indonesia Fashion Week and chair of the Indonesian Fashion Designer Entrepreneurs Association (APPMI), which initiates the event, described ulos as more than a traditional fabric from North Sumatra — a symbol of warmth, balance, harmony and unity. Her framing of the theme was explicitly industrial. "Indonesia's fashion industry must continue to maintain a balance between tradition and innovation, between local wisdom and global competition, and between cultural values and the future of the creative industry," she said.
Ulos is woven by hand and carries specific ceremonial and social functions within Batak life. The 2026 theme took its geometry — axial, repeating, symmetrical — as a design principle rather than a print to be reproduced. That distinction matters. A designer can engage a textile's structure and philosophy without cutting up the cloth itself, and coverage that treats every heritage reference as identical use flattens the difference between reinterpretation and decoration.
The looks on the runway suggested designers took a range of positions. One model walked in a cropped green jacket with scalloped shoulder panels and gold beadwork over striped brown trousers finished with raw fringe at the ankle — traditional woven material handled as tailoring rather than drapery. Another wore an oxblood jacket covered in white geometric motifs, buttoned high at the neck, over a full washed skirt and black ankle boots. A sage silk ensemble paired a beaded capelet with a wrapped sarong skirt and sculpted headpiece, closer to ceremonial dress. A menswear look ran the other direction entirely: a striped open-front top and matching shorts, straw hat, amber beads, woven basket bag.
None of it read as costume, but not all of it read as ready-to-wear either, and the gap between those two is where the event does its most interesting work.
Indonesia's textile identity cannot be reduced to a single cloth or region, and the schedule reflected that. Bandung-based designer Agia Sakmiwata showed "Unbound Sengkang," which reworks Sengkang woven sarongs from the Bugis community of South Sulawesi into contemporary pieces, combining them with organza and traditional bodo garments across five designs dominated by red, black and white. "Unbound Sengkang refers to freeing oneself from constraints and challenging the notion that elderly people exclusively use sarongs for domestic purposes," she said. "We turn them into a variety of fashion pieces that can be worn by individuals of all ages and backgrounds, such as ready-to-wear dresses, skirts, trousers and outerwear."
Designer Melanie Rianti opened the event with "Cloud Dancer," an off-white look built around an off-the-shoulder balloon-sleeve top and a mermaid dress with geometric panels, using applications inspired by the Betawi flower-shaped snack kembang goyang. She works largely with Baduy weaves from Banten Province and comes to fashion from an architecture background.
The front rows were full of headscarves, and modest dressing ran through much of what walked. It is not one silhouette. Designers worked it through length, layering, controlled volume and how fabric moves — a high-necked jacket over a floor-sweeping skirt does different work than a coordinated separates set, and both were present.
Visibility for handwoven textiles cuts two ways. Runway exposure builds demand, and demand can support weaving communities or invite printed imitation that undercuts them. The useful questions are practical ones: are artisans named, are regional textile names used accurately, and does the money reach the people at the looms. Ariy Arka, whose collection "JABAT" placed ulos at its center, put the design side plainly after his show: fashion is fashion, and it comes down to how you package it, because the development of ulos right now is extraordinary.
The commercial infrastructure is not incidental. Hundreds of designers, brand owners, fashion houses, artisans and small businesses take part each year, and the program includes exhibitions and shows alongside business matching sessions, export talks and creative forums. This edition featured designers from several countries including Malaysia and India, plus trade representatives from 32 countries. Among the international entries was Sadaf by Papri Basak, working with natural fibers, low-impact woven fabrics and natural dyes, and Bengali techniques including kantha embroidery, batik and shibori.
Symmetry, as a theme, requires two sides to hold. The clothes at JCC this week were where that balance got tested — a woven panel cut into a jacket that someone will actually wear to work, and a cloth that still means what it meant before anyone put it on a runway.
