Dynand Fariz

In a small city in East Java, fashion designer Dynand Fariz has created an annual carnival that encourages creativity among youth, teaches useful new skills, and engages the entire community in a spectacular yet educational event.

Although fashion is generally accessible only to the consumer elite, Dynand is bringing it to young people in the small Indonesian city of Jember. Using fashion as an entry point, Dynand turns the consumerism usually associated with it on its head. None of the carnival participants buys a costume. Instead, they use what they have, transforming simple materials after studying images and ideas from many sources. The yearlong process of staging the carnival redefines fashion as an alternative, informally educating youth and transforming their lives. Carnival participants learn about important contemporary issues, develop a wide variety of new skills, and, finally, perform for the public. The event’s socially oriented themes encourage participants and spectators alike to engage with other parts of Indonesia and the world.
For youth in Jember, where the traditional economy has eroded, the future can seem quite limited. Dynand addresses this pessimism by demonstrating that an event as seemingly superficial as a fashion carnival can in fact generate widespread change. During its five years in operation, the carnival has reached over four hundred youth, who are directly involved in preparing for the event; thousands of locals, who come to watch the show; and a wide variety of community institutions, ranging from small businesses to schools and even mosques.
Participants in the carnival become like an extended family; that spirit soon spreads, strengthening ties within the community as a whole. Dynand has won the support of community leaders, including Muslim clerics, who initially opposed the carnival. Besides giving young people a way to be acknowledged by their community, the carnival also provides the community with a flourishing tourist attraction. It has stimulated local entrepreneurship and given rise to new economic activity in Jember. Young people who have trained for the carnival have gone on to become professional models, dancers, singers, presenters, instructors, and choreographers. Some now teach, and others have found work in the emerging Indonesian fashion and design industry.

Indonesia’s economy is largely based on agriculture; almost half the population earns a living in the fields. This is true for the vast majority of Jember’s 2.1 million inhabitants, who primarily work on tobacco plantations. However, with the rise of global anti-smoking campaigns, the tobacco industry has declined, giving way to widespread unemployment in and around Jember.
Like much of the rest of the country, Jember lacks a trained workforce that can compete in the global marketplace. Although the Indonesian government has attempted to increase school enrollment across the country, the education infrastructure is inadequate to the task, and even low-quality schools are financially inaccessible to a significant number of families.
The unemployment rate for youth in Indonesia is four times that of adults. Furthermore, Indonesian society has long overlooked and undervalued young people’s potential to take greater responsibility for their lives and communities. The result is that large numbers of them are skeptical, passive, and unproductive. Dynand regards this as a threat to the future of Jember’s young generation. The rapid flow of information into the country through the Internet, television, and other mass media has the potential to encourage passivity and obsessive consumption, rather than active participation in the global economy. Youth who cannot respond to the rapid changes in their country and create new economic opportunities will be left behind.

Dynand started the Jember Fashion Carnival as a way for youth to learn life skills through fashion. He has developed a method of teaching that inspires creativity, builds cooperation, and instills self-confidence and leadership skills.
The carnival preparation process is intensive. Over the course of twelve months, participants develop the skills they’ll need to put on a high-quality performance. Every year, Dynand chooses a different theme that relates to current global events, such as the Bali bombing or the Southeast Asian tsunami. These themes help youth develop a deeper understanding of global phenomena. Dynand, who travels to Jember from Jakarta every weekend to train participants, shares many images from places and events around the world that relate to that year’s theme. This helps participants design the visual look of the carnival and choose the music.
With the help of Dynand’s collection of fashion images from around the world, each participant designs a costume that relates to that year’s theme. Dynand, his colleagues at the ESMOD School of Design in Jakarta, and past carnival participants teach event planning, simple dance steps, and hair, makeup, and costume design, among other skills. The goal is for every student to give his or her best performance, paying special attention to facial expressions and staying in character.
Starting on the first day of instruction, Dynand works to build anticipation and maintain intense focus among the participants. To further inspire their creativity, at the end of the term, the Jember Fashion Carnival conducts a competition for best performance in different categories, with scholarships for the winners. Judges include Dynand’s colleagues at the ESMOD School of Design. The climax of the year’s training is the street parade of models and dancers wearing elaborate costumes designed by the participants. Younger children from local elementary schools speak about the year’s theme as they accompany the parade.
The Carnival’s effects are apparent throughout the community. The event promotes the development and use of local resources. Young designers use their own materials to create their costumes. Small clothing, accessories, and handicrafts businesses as well as restaurants, hotels, and transportation companies not only benefit from the carnival, but have gone on to employ former carnival participants. The annual event is also a prized opportunity for street vendors. Its economic impact has reached beyond small businesses to the nascent Indonesian fashion design industry.
The carnival is transforming attitudes in this traditional and conservative society. Dynand regards Muslim clerics’ initial opposition to the more revealing elements of carnival costumes as largely a matter of communication. So he invited clerics and other community elders to rehearsals, so they could see the positive impact of the program. Now they support his efforts. Furthermore, more and more community members have begun to volunteer on behalf of the carnival and a variety of local institutions, from police to schools, have become part of the planning. Local teachers have begun to value the materials Dynand uses to teach about the year’s theme and help participants plan their roles. Dynand is hoping to adapt these rich learning resources in to school curricula.
Every year in the course of preparing for the carnival, Dynand’s students become skilled, confident instructors. During the week, when Dynand is in Jakarta, they maintain the momentum of preparations, so that he can pick up where he left off when he returns on the weekend. Past participants promote the Carnival, campaigning for it in their schools. One girl convinced her school to offer a fashion class as an extra-curricular activity and to let her act as the instructor. Other participants have conducted carnival-inspired competitions in their own villages.
In the five years since Dynand started the Jember Fashion Carnival, it has earned a reputation as a spectacular, entertaining, and educational event. Carnival participants have performed around Indonesia, including at Bali’s fashion week, and in a special performance for Indonesia’s president. To help publicize the carnival, Dynand started the Jember Fashion Carnival Council, which now manages carnival activities. He recently participated in an international conference that looked at fashion as an instrument for social change. In the long-term, Dynand plans to set up a fashion carnival institute in Indonesia that will become a point of reference for those working in the fields of fashion, community-based entertainment, and social development among Indonesia’s youth.

Dynand is one of eleven siblings born to a rural family. When he was young, his family left its village to take advantage of the educational opportunities in the nearby city of Jember. When Dynand was in senior high school, he began to search for a way to do something valuable. He describes this quest as having a “desperate” quality because at the time he felt concerned that his large family might drift apart.
He came up with a plan to hold a family reunion every year, during which every family member would dress up in costume and present something of interest to the group. The event was a success. Eventually, over 350 members of his extended family became involved; they had to rent a hotel ballroom to accommodate the crowd. Dynand took special satisfaction in the experience of his relatives from the village, who grew comfortable with the city experiences—riding in elevators and eating in restaurants, among others—that had once seemed foreign. As his siblings married, their in-laws developed their own versions of the family festival, a pattern that continues to this day. Dynand’s immediate family remains a core part of the Jember Carnival.
Later Dynand discovered his talent for art and entertainment. He moved to Jakarta, where he received a scholarship to study fashion. His experience as a student made him aware of the importance of being a committed and wholehearted teacher. Soon, he began to lecture in a modeling school. He was determined to share his good fortune with his community. Dynand strongly believes in the competency and creativity of each individual. Although fashion is often equated with the fortunate, he thinks of it as something that can be learned and shared by everyone.