Asia’s biggest fashion e-commerce firm attracts young Indonesian designers

After launching its designer section in June, Zalora established itself as a full-fashion platform, according to Zalora Indonesia chief executive officer Anthony Fung.
“Zalora’s collaboration with 43 young Indonesian designers is an extraordinary achievement for us in 2016. We’re really happy to participate in the Indonesian fashion industry’s development.
“We hope to add more young Indonesian designers’ names in the Zalora Design Project and provide our customers with authentic products from various high-quality labels,” he said.
“Acquiring the first batch of designers was quite challenging. Our first designer was Billy Tjong, which was in 2014, so we didn’t touch the segment for two years. It took us six months to get the first 15-20 designers [signed] on.
“But after the first batch – and they actually saw quite good traction in terms of the way we promote them, the way we give them exposure – some brands have had some pretty good sales, and [attracting] this second batch was quite easy.”
The success of previous collaboration with the first batch of designers gained interest and trust from broader circles of young designers, and some who were approached by Zalora in the past changed their minds and decided to give the new platform a go.
On the designer-label page, Zalora focuses on women’s wear for obvious reasons, mainly because women are the bigger segment for designer fashion goods.
“Men are still a little bit focused on brands, athletic leisure and lifestyle brands like Nike or Adidas. So the appeal of designers is stronger for ladies,” Fung explained.
Although the current focus is on women’s wear, Fung said the opportunity of getting men’s wear designers on board was open.
Fashion blogger Olivia Lazuardy, who recently launched her clothing line Calla Atelier, is among the 20 young designers featured in the Zalora Designer Project 2.0.
“Calla Atelier was just launched in August 2016 and I immediately think that with my background as a fashion blogger I have an online fan base. Therefore we need an online e-commerce platform and Zalora is a good choice because it’s well known,” she explained.
Chung Yi, founder of Scandinavian-style bag label Doxology, is excited about the collaboration. “Zalora contacted us and said they are interested in having us on their designers page.
We jumped at the opportunity, and now we have all our collection on the page.”
Brands and designers whose ready-to-wear collections are featured in Zalora’s designer page include Aesthetic Pleasure, AINE, Andhita Siswandi, Alexalexa, Agatha Aprilia, Austere, Bien, CALLA ATELIER, Drama, Doxology, Ensemble, Identite, Ingrid Husodo, Jasmine Elizabeth, KAR, Monday to Sunday, M by Mischa, Saint x Sinner, Srou and Suki.