Bachelor of Fashion Enterprise students experience Indonesia’s fashion industry

As part of the inaugural Fashion Enterprise Global Experience study tour, six students were immersed in the Indonesian fashion industry.

Students studying the Bachelor of Fashion Enterprise focus on three streams of study: marketing, retail and product development.

The study tour to Indonesia shed light on all three of these themes, with a key focus on sustainability and how the Indonesian market is adapting to and promoting more sustainable fashion production and consumption practices.

Dr Harriette Richards, a lecturer for the Bachelor of Fashion Enterprise, accompanied the students on the tour.

“I think the key benefit for the students was spending two weeks in another culture,” she said.

“This experience really opened their eyes to how people of different religious, class and cultural backgrounds engage with fashion and what this might mean for their own future careers in the industry.”

Dr Richards noted that one of the most interesting aspects of the Indonesian fashion market is that it is the largest Muslim population in the world, making it a leader in the modest fashion industry.

“This is a sector of the industry that most of the students on the tour were not at all familiar with," she said.

"It was incredibly valuable for them to learn about this fashion market and how fashion can be intimately connected with religious identity, in ways that they had not previously considered.

Alt Text is not present for this image, Taking dc:title 'Indonesia Fashion Students group photo'

RMIT Fashion Enterprise student pictured with Dr Harriette Richards (top row, four from right) and individuals from Busana Apparel, Jakarta Fashion Week, Rentai Tekstil Lestari, Asia Pacific Fibres and Bandung Institute of Technology, International Internships team members.

Grace Gorrie, a second-year Fashion Enterprise student, found representing RMIT in another country an incredibly gratifying experience.

“The opportunities to interact and communicate with Indonesian fashion brand CEOs, global manufacturing company executives and even the Jakarta Fashion Week team was the most rewarding aspect to the trip,” she said.

“Networking with these people could potentially be the first step in building a solid contact base to help pursue a fashion business career internationally.”

Grace also highlighted the benefit of out-of-classroom experience and taking your in-class learnings and applying them practically.

“The tour urged you to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself,” she said.

The work we did on the tour was an invaluable experience that positioned me strongly for a career in the fashion industry.

While this tour to Indonesia was only the first of its kind, Dr Richards made sure to highlight the wide range of intensive courses and global experiences offered through RMIT across different programs.

“There are incredible opportunities for exchange and study abroad, and I would strongly encourage students to take advantage of what is on offer through Mobi,” she said.

“These opportunities offer such an incredible chance to see the world, learn in different cultural contexts and expand the horizons of what might be possible in future.”

This global study tour was funded by the New Colombo Plan (NCP) Mobility Program and delivered in partnership with International Internships.

For more information about the Bachelor of Fashion Enterprise, visit here.

For more information about Mobi, RMIT's hub for Global Experiences, visit here.

Story: Sheridan Van Gelderen

17 March 2023

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Bachelor of Fashion Enterprise students experience Indonesia’s fashion industry