I have this habit of asking someone that I know from social media to meet up in person. I mentioned this on my previous postings months ago. Anyway, I have twitter follower that attract my attention because of the name: Dorotea Gale.
Naturally, I browse around and I found out that Dorotea Gale is actually the name of their product using Indonesian textiles. I got curious and ask the owner to meet and have a little of chit chat. And not only just a gal chit chat. But I used this opportunity to interview the owner as well. So, here goes...
Can you tell us a bit about Dorotea Gale? Like when this business started? Why choose the name?
Dorotea Gale was founded by Dewi Cristina after living in Indonesia for a while. Here she began to learn about Indonesia’s traditional textiles and the expert craftsmanship behind them. She wanted to do something practical and beautiful with them. Being a fanatic traveler, she was quite used to not to have more than the strictly necessary things, and having a textile collection was not very pragmatic. That’s where the idea of Dorotea Gale began. She decided to use the beautiful fabrics collected on her travels to make useful objects everyone needs in their daily lives, firmly believing that thing become alive only when they are used.
The name Dorotea Gale was inspired by the main character of the Wizard of Oz. Like her, Dewi had left everything she was accustomed with to start following her own yellow brick road to search for something else. This is where the story of Dorotea Gale begins.
Tell us about the process in the making of Dorotea Gale’s products. Who do all the design?
EveryDorotea Gale product is designed with three ideas in mind: to be useful, to show off Indonesian textiles and to be of good quality, embracing the rise of sustainable, ethical fashion.
Dewi Cristina is the designer of the products, carefully choosing every textile, accessory and piece of leather for each one-of-a-kind piece. She’s lived in four major cities across three continents so, like her, the products are inevitably designed for urban women, socially conscious and with an ethnic touch.
What kind of product that Dorotea Gale make?
Dorotea Gale started producing handbags, urban designs with an ethnic accent. Now it isalso expanding toaccessories and home décor items, to ease the access to Indonesian textiles to a greater amount of people. But handbags are definitely her thing!
Why focusing on those products? Will Dorotea Gale also be producing dress or shoes as well?
Because Dewi Cristina, as every other woman, loves handbags and is constantly searching for the perfect bag! From the beginning, she wanted to created products that could be easily used, such as bags. Home décor items are also a good way to display pieces of art in a pragmatic way: cushions, runners, mats... are things we all use.
To create a clothing line is a possibility for the future. She studied fashion design here in Jakarta but for the moment she prefers now to focus on a few things and do them right than to try to do too many things at the same time. Step by step.
What kind of materials that being used to most of Dorotea Gale’s product? Why choose that material?
Dorotea Gale uses traditional Indonesian textiles for all the products: tenun, batik and ikat. Not only they are beautiful, but the skillful work they have behind has to be more widely known. We’ve had enough of fast fashion and disposable cultures, it is time now to connect with the products we have and to buy consciously. Indonesia has an amazing art culture and needs to keep encouraging and promoting it.
Dorotea Gale focuses on sustainable fashion, using products as natural as possible. For example, we’ll soon launch an ‘Eco’ line that’ll only use natural dyes. We use real leather because is much more durable than synthetic leather and because we try to keep the use of plastic to the minimum. Products and packaging are created with that in mind.
Which ethnic material often or majorly used for Dorotea Gale’s production?
We try to use textiles from all over Indonesia, but this is such a huge Archipelago that we haven’t had enough time to do it yet! So far we’ve used textiles mainly from NTT, Java, Lombok, Bali and Sumatra.
How do you get your material? Does Dorotea Gale working together with local artist or craftsman?
We collect textiles every time we travel through the islands, buying directly from the artisan whenever posible. We also have some suppliers from Java and NTT.
Is there any of your customer send their own design to Dorotea Gale?
We have our own unique designs, we don’t use other’s designs. There are many skillful artisans here who can customize a special bag for a client, so we let them do their job.
Does Dorotea Gale always ready in stock or customer need to make an order first then you make the product?
Dorotea Gale’s products are made in small quantities to avoid overproduction, so we don’t have hundreds of items in stock.As a result, and because we use handmade textiles, each item is one-of-a-kind. They can be similar but not identical because we don’t mass produce.
The best way to get a Dorotea Gale bag is to follow us on social media or subscribe to the newsletter to know when we’ll be restocking and be the first to access the new products.
We’ve also launched a new Pre-Order section, which helps us to produce in a more sustainable way based in demand. With this option, the client pays a small fee so we compensate them with a discount on the final price. We believe that each of us can make a difference, and together we can make a change.
There you goes readers ^_^ Oh and by the way, thank you for having this interview…
All, if you wish to get one (or more) from Dorotea Gale you may reach them at :
Official site
Don't forget there is Valentine Day promo so be sure to check their social media accounts or just go straight to the official site ^_^
Posted here by Ria Play With Clothes.
Bucket bag one of my favorit bag, and from the picture i can see how indonesian's textile motif and also the texture make it looks like a vintage things. And i'm addicted of vintage stuff.
BalasHapusFYI, i currently stalking their instagram. Woahhh
gorgeous all of them, don't you think? :)
HapusThanks for the feature Ria! We will keep working on promoting the amazing Indonesian textiles all over the world! We'll also start selling at Qlapa.com very soon, so stay tuned because we'll be offering local prices! Indonesian art must be much more accessible for Indonesian people! :)
BalasHapusAha! So, it is the name of their product. The brand. They are awesome! I love the handbag, si unique. What about the price?
BalasHapuswooo produknya bagus. tp blm pernah coba
BalasHapusProduk dalam negri nih? Berasa produk LN deh :D Harganya gimana Mbak Ria?
BalasHapuskeren... nama brandnya, produk2nya juga...
BalasHapus