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This year’s JF3 Fashion Festival—a 12-day fashion, culture, and retail event held annually in Jakarta, Indonesia—doesn’t just reaffirm its place as Indonesia’s most consistent and wide-reaching fashion ecosystem. It repositions fashion itself as a launching pad for a new generation—specifically, the generation that knows how to turn vision into value, and culture into clothing. And two women are at the front of its future.
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Case in point: the launch of the Future Fashion Award 2025, a program designed to recognize and support emerging Indonesian designers, celebrates not only creativity, but the sheer force of will it takes to build something from the ground up.
For its debut run, the award spotlights two remarkable women who are doing exactly that.
Desi Dwi Lestari
Founder of the sustainable label iii, Desi Dwi Lestari designs as if the sea herself whispered to her sketchbook. Drawing from Indonesia’s coastlines, her work incorporates natural materials like Tencel, organic linen, seaweed fibers, and naturally dyed batik.
Her practice is proof that environmental design doesn’t have to sacrifice detail: pleats, ruffles, and intricate patchwork hold their own against fast fashion’s emptier promises. Hers is a vision where fashion is not extractive but generative—an artform that gives back to its source.
Frederika Cynthia Dewi
Frederika Cynthia Dewi’s namesake label FREDERIKA takes handcrafted batik to the realm of refined, everyday wear. Her pieces carry the echo of time—hand-drawn, stamped, and painted motifs—but land firmly in the now.
Since founding the brand in 2019, she’s turned eco-conscious artistry into a language of elegance, showing that heritage can be wielded as both inspiration and innovation.
In a festival filled with streetwear, skateboarding, live DJ sets, and global trade collaborations, it’s this—the emergence of women-led brands that center culture, craft, and climate—that may be the most compelling headliner of all.
Photos courtesy of JAKARTA FASHION WEEK, FREDERIKA and III (via Instagram)
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