The Straits Times - Life! section
Thursday, November 19, 1998

Shiok or not?
Quite, right? But can Asiatropic style sell to the West? Sure can try, say four of the region's best
By CAT ONG

It isn't only sarong party girls who are chasing the ang mohs today.
Now that Fashion Connections is pushing the Asiatropic look, even creators of ethnic style are going after them. Western fashion marketeers, that is.
Fashion Connections is Singapore's answer to Hongkong Fashion Week.
The sarong party girl came back into fashion three years ago, courtesy of, among others, Belgian designer Dries Van Noten, who has incorporated Malay sarongs, Indian saris and even Mandarin collars into his creations persistently.
Since then, the West has been raiding the East for fashion ideas.
It led to the 10th Fashion Connections turning Asiatropic last year.
The term describes a contemporary, tropical look that is marketable to the West.
It even brought The International Herald Tribune's renowned fashion editor, Ms Suzy Menkes, to Singapore last year, to investigate.
This year, Singapore's very own Daniel Yam, Gitanjali Kashyap from India, Biyan Wanaatmadja from Indonesia and Shiatzy Chen from Taiwan presented their East-meets-West creations as the highlight of last week's Fashion Connections.
It was a cross-cultural feast of languid lines and spicy colours in unexpectedly commercial cuts that ran from the wild and racy in Yam to the sweet and sublime in Biyan.
So go on, stop feeling sari for yourself and join the culture club.

Never say die, always can dye

Tie-dye, that is. Since 35-year-old Daniel Yam discovered the technique 10 years ago, he's become, arguably, Asia's King of the tie-and-dye dress.
Except, as you can see on this page, his aren't those tent-like housecoats or casual beach-slips of yesteryear.
His specialty is whipping up a mile-and-a-half of second-skin slink.
But, to differantiate himself from the body-moulders of the West, all his dresses are tie-dyed.
Last week, he represented Singapore in the Asian Designer's Showcase for Fashion Connections for the second time.
From showing the texture of tree bark to creating pieces of sky in his dresses, Yam showed that the ancient Indonesian technique that he has mastered, can look sophisticated and urbane, in the right hands.
And if you are prepared to burn them, as he did dipping them into boiling water, in order to get the right graduation of blue for his sky dresses.
He said: "Of course, we have to follow Western trends to be saleable but we cannot ape them blindly. For example, I did not do pleated panels to some of my dresses later on because this is how we in the East wear pleats. I am all for taking from their silhouette but finishing it with our own traditional craft, like tie-dye."