For those who know me briefly, I may come across as being soft, demure, more a listener than a speaker. But beneath these exteriors, lies a steely determination that knows no bound.
After leaving high school, I did what most school leavers do, like doing a secretarial course, doing odd jobs that came my way, mostly by relatives' recommendations. None really awakened a passion in me. The secretarial job that I really wanted was always given to a better looking, more buxom girl than I was. (You are forgiven for assuming the recruitment officers were mostly men).
Not wanting to waste anymore time job prospecting, I did the most daring thing a 20 year old I know would ever do in my generation. I opened my own dressmaking business with a high school friend and I took a part time job as an administrative assistant for a local hardware shop. At around the same time, I also enrolled at an English college.
This is how it all came about. During my idle period, I met up with a high school friend Beth, who convinced me to open our dressmaking business. I would be the designer/cutter, she would be the seamstress. “You are clever enough. Let's do it, and I'll help you along” were her encouraging words.
I have always had a passion with dressmaking since the age of 12. Through trial and error I would create a one off master piece, always admired by my peers. But until my meeting with Beth that fateful day, my only qualification was a 2 period of dressmaking class held every Saturday morning for the duration of 2 years at high school. I passed the practical exam with flying colors, which played a major part in getting my HSC. Whoever said "practice makes perfect" forgot to mention that an element of determination played a major significance. I have more, a sense of cockiness, I guess. What others do I can do better. But running my own business was never one of my dreams. Still, it was reassuring to know that a friend has so much faith in me.
A casual visit to a former tailor who agreed to provide us with a shop-corner, a spare sewing machine, a shared fitting-room and a minimal rent sealed our deal, and our dressmaking business was born. Our trading hours were from 8 am to 6 pm. It was October 1974.
To get clients through the door, I offered shop-assistants and waitresses along Malioboro main street, a 10% commission for recommending our services to passing tourists.
Early in the 70's Indonesia was fast becoming a popular tourist destination. Yogyakarta, the city where I lived, particularly, has a sultan palace and is a gateway for traveling both to the famous Buddhist Borobudur and Hindu Prambanan temples. The city also boosts the most universities in all Indonesia, and is also a mecca for art and tradition lovers, as it provides a growing number of batik galleries, leather and wooden puppet galleries and silversmith showrooms.
Unsure if our business venture would be fruitful, Beth agreed to mind our workshop while I worked at a nearby hardware shop as an administrative assistant from 9 am till noon, mainly to pay for my college and Beth's wages. We would then spend the afternoon together so she could learn to take clients' measurements and the trade in general .
We were lucky that our workshop was only 50 meters from the heart of the city, Malioboro street, and was flanked by 3 motels which were frequented by parents of and would be students enrolling in various universities offered by our buzzing city. In the first month, with very little rent to pay (10% of our gross takings), we each raked in wages 10 times as much as a local shop-assistant was earning. By the second month, we managed to purchase our own sewing machine. Things were looking good for us.
But a week before college started in February, I was served a devastating blow when Beth's fiancé came from West Papua where he was posted, to marry her. After Beth's wedding and splitting up of our asset, she and her husband headed to live in West Papua and I was left to run our workshop alone. I also found out that most foreign travelers were out of town during the day, thus I was also forced to extend my trading hours well into 9 pm, often 10 pm. After college began in February 1975, my schedule was more hectic than ever, now that I had to fit in lectures from 2 to 5 pm Monday to Friday as well.
On Saturday and Sunday I would work non-stop from 8 am to 10 pm. I often had my college friends visit me so we could do our assignment together in my workshop. It was business, study and fun all thrown in together. Hectic but blissful nonetheless. For despite my chaotic routine, I was completely happy and was totally in my element. Soon I was employing neighbors as my seamstresses. Reluctantly I had to give up my administrative job as I got busier with my dressmaking work.
