Joanne Andreas

Joanne Andreas, a young fashion designer based in Surabaya, developed an interest in design and crafts at a very early age. Joanne often observed her mother, who is a fashion designer herself, and she began creating little crafts at the age of 4. She learned how to stitch by hand, make little dolls, and she enjoyed scrapbooking.

As she grew older, she took more of an interest in her mother’s drawings, and at the age of 8 she too started drawing and learned from her mother. As she learned more about it she’d become more and more intrigued. At this point in her life Joanne focused on illustrating clothing and human figures, and she learned how to sew utilizing a sewing machine. She then started to create clothing for kids and expressed her interest in being able to create what kids want to wear (as she herself was a kid). Joanne began to sell her designs along with accessories such as bandanas and hair clips. She started to learn about women figures, and created clothing for women at the age of 12.

Joanne admits that being born to a fashion designer, she was often accused of having her career handed to her by her mother. But in reality she had learned most of her skills through fashion school. Her mother was often a judge for various fashion competitions, not only in Surabaya but also in Jakarta and other countries. This made it difficult for her as whenever she joined a competition that had correlation with her mother, as she could not be chosen as the winner due to possible accusations being made that she had won because of her mother’s influence.

She recalled that her first achievement was when she became a judge for a modeling competition when she was in 4th grade. She had entered a lot of fashion show competitions, and won first place at Surabaya Fashion Parade 2013. Joanne mentioned that at the time she was not allowed to join the competition as it had a minimum age of 17 while she was only 12 years old. However, after reviewing her designs they had agreed to accept her into the competition. She had participated in a lot of runways at malls all around Surabaya, and would get interviews for magazines, newspapers, and sometimes even television.

Back then Joanne was heavily into makeup, and joined a course for it in order to fulfill her dream to be a makeup artist. As she went along the journey she realized that it wasn't her passion, although she still enjoyed working with makeup and would occasionally create makeup looks on her models for photoshoots. However, Joanne never gave up her interest in the fashion world.

She observed different eras of fashion and how they are constantly rotating over the years. One of her favorite eras is the Dior era, when women started to develop their own style. In the old days women’s choices of clothing were limited, but during the war women began to wear their husband’s uniforms as it was more practical. This was the first time women were allowed to wear pants, whereas before they were only allowed to wear ball gowns. Joanne expressed her liking for the Dior “New Look” and how it revolutionized the fashion industry.

Starting off with kids wear, Joanne then moved on to teenage wear, and eventually to women’s wear which is her current specialty and main focus (though she still dabbles in kids and teenage wear ever so often). Not just stopping with clothing, Joanne plans to explore more about designing shoes for her master’s degree, or take a short course to learn more about it. Joanne is currently enrolled in university, and has decided to pause her career in fashion design for a period of time to pursue her studies in Malaysia.

written by Delbar Rosana Ifra Zafira

eu/noi/art by Daniella Renatta Citra (G10)