Tuesday 26th October

An early start and its off to meet my knitwear specialist in Denpasar. After the initial fitting and discussing the specifications, we travel to my fabric supplier to choose some jerseys for the basics range.

For lunch my driver and I tucked into a delicious meal of Masakan Padang in a local restaurant. Afterwards, I spent some time at my leather supplier, carefully choosing each skin for the first samples.

Richard, my Jakarta correspondant has set up a meeting with an important maker for shoes and bags in the country’s capital city tomorrow morning. I quickly made a booking for the 2215 flight that leaves in just a few hours! It’s important to take into account weather conditions and the possible event of natural disasters occurring into schedule. Richard tells me that he was stuck in a mall in Kemang from 8pm to almost 2 in the morning due to a 1- 1.5m deep flash flooding in the fashionable district, causing extensive traffic throughout the city for days. To make things worse, flights were heavily delayed as Mt. Merapi has started spitting out lava and the heavy smoke has congested the skies around West Java. I am stuck in the airport filled with people smoking ciggarettes, one could have easily mistaken it for volcano smoke that had seeped in through the windows.

In the morning, we meet with Michelle - a fellow fashion designer in Jakarta who takes us to the fashion suppliers district where I source trims and hardware for the new bag designs. For dinner, we meet with my good friend Lisa who owns one of the best clothing boutiques in Indonesia called Fj'L stocking Parisian and Australian designers.