Sky-High Fashion

(6/2/2010)

Garuda Indonesia launched new uniform designs at a public gathering held in the Hotel Indonesia Ballroom on Thursday, May 27, 2010.

As reported by Kompas, the new in-flight costumes for stewardesses will be inspired by the traditional kebaya with blue lereng batik sarongs complemented by a blue or turquoise Kartini-styled kebaya for the upper torso. An additional costume style for the ladies includes orange lereng batik sarong with a matching orange Kebaya.

Male cabin-crew will sport grey suits, blue shirts, and branded neck-ties.

The new uniforms represent one step of an overall plan to earn a 5-star rating for what is termed the "Garuda Experience." The design team for the new uniforms included Josphone (Onin) Weeatie Komara, color consultant Irma Hardisurya, a former cabin crew member Dianti Poetranto, design consultant Ted Sulisto and Grace Purukan of Garuda.

The selection of batik motifs reflects the naming of batik as world heritage product by UNESCO in 2009.

Unfortunately, the need to rapidly produce sufficient new uniforms for 1,600 cabin crew means that the costumes will be ersatz batik, mass-produced in a modern textile factory and not the highly regarded hand-made batik for which Indonesia is famous.

Speaking at the "uniform launch," the CEO of Garuda, Emirsyah Satar, said the new outfits reflect the larger transformation taking place at the State-owned airline. Underlining this corporate transformation is Garuda's increasingly young fleet of aircraft, now averaging 8 years as compared to five years ago when the average age of a plane was 14 years.

Skytrax recently rated Garuda as a four-star carrier together with 26 other international carriers from the total of 210 reviewed.

Bright Skies Ahead

Emirsyah was enthusiastic in telling the audience, "on June 1 Garuda will return to Amsterdam." Other European destinations are planned as part of Garuda's European revival including, Frankfurt, Rome and London. Once more aircraft join the Garuda armada plans call for flights to the U.S.A.'s West Coast in 2013.

Shown on balidiscovery.com is Garuda's CEO Emirsyah Satar (middle) standing among a group of crewmembers modeling the in-flight costumes. (Photo: Kompas)