Meaningful Fashion
This article was published in Borneo Insider’s Guide on October 1, 2019.
This is the world of fast fashion; the release of trendy clothing inspired by the catwalk with the use of cheap material at breakneck speed. The massive use of non-renewal materials, energy, chemicals and water to make these products may not affect the people who live in Borneo directly, but what if it did? Would it help a consumer choose an outfit differently, knowing it’s hitting you close to home?
Close to home for us right now is Kalimantan: the sprawling center of the world’s biodiversity and home to the world’s oldest forest. But today, with the effects of rapid globalisation, it now suffers a high rate of deforestation and a decline in sustainable forest-based products, which renders it incapable of supplying an adequate amount of food to its people.
And when the problem is in your home, then you’re the person that should be stepping up to fix it. Randi Julian Miranda is a proud Dayak man, born in Indonesian Borneo, and with the intention of reconnecting his fellow Dayak people to their verdant lands and re-embrace their traditions at the same time help its people sustain its resources, Handep Haruei was born.
The brand is a social enterprise in Central Kalimantan that empowers women and smallscale farmers through ecofashion and ethical products, creating a locally-sensitive and sustainable economic community in Indonesia, particularly Kalimantan. Randi gears toward an economic development that focuses on everything including profit generation, by factoring in the preservation of cultures and traditions, local natural and human resources, and ecological aspects of the whole.
The brand partners with around 100 women weavers and smallholder farmers in Central Kalimantan, and practice the use of fair trade, sharing 20% of their net profit to partner weavers and farmers in the forms of cash, training programs and village infrastructure development.
Shopping with a clear conscience should be important to all consumers, but if it’s not ethics that grabs your attention, let’s take this space to assure you that the eye-catching products by Handep Haruei certainly will. The brand manages to finely balance the traditional art of weaving with contemporary fashion, releasing chic accessories that is both beautiful and meaningful. And their brand’s jungle honey is definitely one for your kitchen cabinet.
Here’s hoping that Handep Haruei succeeds in their mission statement to ensure the quality of the products you buy is equal to the quality of the lives of the people who make them. Inserting ethics in fashion has been inspiring a fashion revolution, and if we’re judging this standard by Handep Haruei’s products, then this revolution is set to look fabulous.
