Marcel Thee

Jalan Tebet Utara Raya is filled with distros, music venues and cheap eateries, drawing a hip young crowd to the area. (Photo: Marcel Thee, JG)

Weekends On Distro Avenue

The Tebet district became a hotbed for clothing stores. (Photo: Marcel Thee, JG)

In the quest to relieve young and upwardly mobile teens and young adults of their disposable income, few business models can compete with the combination of distros (independent clothing stores), live music venues and cheap eateries.

And while many other distro-fi lled areas have become increasingly popular as gathering spaces — including the Cempaka Putih district in Central Jakarta and Jalan Setiabudi in Bandung — none in the last few years have reached the level of success of the Tebet district. It has become the area for teenagers and young adults to congregate on the weekends, and sometimes even on weekdays.

“There used to be six small stores here and the rest were neighborhood houses,” said Theresia Alit Widyasari, better known as Sari, who along with two brothers owns three distros — short for distribution outlets — Bloop, Endorse and Urbie. “Now, there are maybe only six houses and the rest are businesses.”

On weekends, vehicles cruise Jalan Tebet Utara Raya, which is filled with neon signs and music. At the side of the road, hundreds of motorcycles are parked — most of them owned by teens in trendy clothing. Some of the young males wear jackets and suits, obviously preferring style over comfort. The Jakarta heat doesn’t make it easy to hang out with style at open-air food joints but the young women here also make an attempt — and even on cooler nights, they can be found wearing what could be the sexiest clothes this side of a “Sex and the City” episode. Many of the fashion choices are reminiscent of so-called “hipsters” in New York and other major world cities.

“I think we [teenagers] like clothes like those in [fashion-centric magazines] Fader, ID, Spin, Vogue and the rest,” said Handarini, a university student who was shopping at Sari’s Bloop store. “And in normal clothing stores, you definitely won’t find cool clothes.

“What I like best is that the materials are nice and the clothes are quality-made, but they’re inexpensive,” she added.

“Much of it depends on the distro, though. Sometimes there are bad distros that have bad designs and cheap materials. The ones here [at Tebet] are definitely the better ones.”

The seeds of this local scene were sown in the 1990s with the rising popularity of local independent bands. Many of the bands wanted to market their own merchandise and started by selling cheap silk-screened logo T-shirts. Music fans also wanted to wear T-shirts featuring their favorite international bands, but imported items were typically sold only in malls and at high prices. There was also a lack of merchandise from more cutting-edge bands available.

A few members of the independent music and art scene noticed the problem and decided to open stores to sell local bands’ CDs and T-shirts, as well as merchandise from overseas bands. By the mid-’90s, these early distros had begun to gain momentum, and many created their own brands of clothing, most of which took the name of the store. There were, among others, Cynical MD in South Jakarta and 347 in Bandung. Some didn’t last long, but others thrived. Cynical MD, whose owner began by selling his own T-shirt designs on the streets of Blok M, was successful for about a year then collapsed, while 347 came to be, arguably, the most influential brand and distro in Indonesia.

By 2003, distros were everywhere and had reached beyond the independent art-scene crowd. Young kids, teens and even adults substituted shopping at traditional boutiques for the hip designs of the distros. Along the way, band merchandise became secondary to the stores’ own clothing lines. Fewer band-related T-shirts were being sold, and more fashionable items took their place.

Priska Ria Sari, a university student, said she shops at distros once or twice a month — mostly at Endorse or Bloop — spending on average Rp 200,000 to Rp 300,000 ($20 to $30) each time on shirts, jackets, shoes and accessories.

“I like to shop at distros, because the clothes are trendier and more up to date. Just much more suited for young people,” she said. “I think they take a lot of influences from foreign magazines.”

Tina Harini, a high school student, is another frequent customer at Tebet distros.

“I always go to distros together with four of my friends on weekends. We hang out at D’Jon most of the time, because we like their burgers,” she said. “I spend maybe around Rp 100,000 to Rp 200,000 every time we go to Tebet.”

D’Jon is the most famous of the food joints in the area, with cheap hamburgers for less than Rp 10,000 and Rp 5,000 milkshakes, a bargain when compared to mall food prices. The eatery is also owned by Sari’s family, and has been one of the most popular cheap food joints for teens in the area for the last few years.

Uday, a waiter at the similar D’King cafe on the main strip, said that on weekdays, the cafe averages around 150 customers, and that can double on weekends.

“We’ve only been open for five months, so we’re still not as big as the other cafes — but we close as late as they do, which is at 2 a.m. on weekends,” he said.

And while such cafes and food joints are almost always crowded, few would have as many visitors were it not for the success of Bloop, Endorse and other distros.

Bapak Hasan, a tukang parkir (parking attendant) in Tebet, has watched the traffic build in the area over a number of years.

“Lots of kids like to go to the distros. It’s always very crowded on weekends here,” he said, “also on weekdays, even during the daytime.”

“I used to just own a warung [traditional food stall] here years ago, but when this area started to become so crowded, [becoming a parking officer] seemed much more beneficial for me. We charge Rp 3,000 for parking here. Hopefully one day we can charge Rp 5,000 to Rp 10,000, just like they do in Kemang.”


Finding Her Niche: Rags to Riches for Young Go-Getter

Prior to starting her distros (independent clothing stores), Theresia Alit Widyasari, or Sari, had tried and failed at several businesses.

At the age of 27, her resume is rather lengthy. Along with her brothers, Martin Sunu Susetyo and Berto Saksono Jati, she has tried her hand at shrimp farming, the raw meat trade, selling martabak (pancakes made with cheese, chocolate, peanuts and egg) and dabbled in stock trading. In her own words, she tried “anything that could make money.”

Today, she and her brothers own the successful distros Bloop, Endorse and Urbie. A friend asked them to build a distro in 2003, “at a time when the business was really thriving” Sari said.

The siblings went to their father for advice. “We took him to Bandung and showed him how the distro industry was flourishing there. He was intrigued and advised us to borrow money from a bank under his name,” Sari said, “with the promise that we’d pay him back.”

With that Rp 50 million ($5,000) loan, the siblings opened their first store, Bloop, in the Kalimalang area in East Jakarta. Customers were scarce and they decided a new location in Tebet, West Jakarta, would be more strategic, considering the teen market they were targeting and Tebet’s proximity to high schools.

There, Bloop immediately thrived. Within just a few months, an average of 1,000 to 1,500 customers per day would visit the 600-square-meter store. Sari said that during Idul Fitri  2006, a record-breaking number 11,000 people visited.

With the success of Bloop, the Tebet district became a hotbed for clothing stores and other businesses targeting the thousands of teenagers that had made the area a crowded late-night hang-out. Sari and her brothers were so successful that they opened two other stores across the street — Endorse and Urbie — both of which were considered “second-line” stores, but have since grown to be as successful as Bloop.

“We knew the location would be right because of the numerous ATM machines there, meaning that banks had already surveyed the area as crowded and strategic,” Sari said.


Location Plus Street Cred Equals Success

An early example of the close link between bands and distros (independent clothing stores) is God Inc. in Bandung, established by J.A. “Otong” Verdijantoro, singer of rock band Koil, in 1998 to sell silk-screen T-shirts bearing his band’s logo.

In 2000, he opened two stores on Jalan Setiabudi in Bandung, well-located near an upper-class high school and amid Internet cafes and snack bars. Because of that location, God Inc. has grown to become one of the eminent distro brands, producing dark-colored clothing with rebellious and often satirical slogans, such as “Vodka: Connecting People” — a play on the “Nokia” slogan.

Kris Fortunato’s Premium Nation also benefited because of its prime location. Kris and high school friend Mario Silalahi opened their first store in early October 2003 in the Pulo Asem area of East Jakarta, although they viewed that only as a temporary site. By 2005, they were successful enough to move into a much larger space in the Cempaka Putih area of Central Jakarta, a promising spot with proximity to many high schools and universities, somewhat similar to Tebet.

Some think that the youth-oriented distros are able to compete with international stores and fashion boutiques because they understand local street fashion better.

“Boutiques make intricate clothing that you wear for special occasions,” Kris said. “We give you cool clothing that you can wear everyday.”

Few of the stores employ professional designers, instead relying mostly on the creativity of the owners and employees.

Otong said that 90 percent of God Inc.’s products are designed by his brother, Donnijantoro. Kris’s brand, Premium Nation, relies on its employees for designs, looking to imported teen-fashion magazines for ideas. Neither Sari nor her brothers had any fashion or design background before opening their first Bloop store, but she went to a fashion marketing school in London shortly after they started the business.

Ade Muslim, one of the first to get into the distro business, created 347 with some friends in 1996. He now runs EAT, a brand and store in Bandung that he started with “zero rupiah — just determination and conviction.”

He said EAT’s designs were mostly influenced by street and “low-brow” art, the latter being a popular visual arts movement in California in the late ’70s.

“We rely on freedom of expression without being tied down by academic conventions,” he said.

Most distros also carry brands that do not have their own stores, such as Black Jack and Firebolt. These are sold on consignment, with the distros getting 20 percent to 40 percent of the sale of items.

“The first five years of building, renovations and maintenance cost about Rp 5 billion [$500,000],” Otong said. God Inc.’s monthly net profit is about Rp 30 million on about Rp 60 million in gross income. “Our biggest sales come from T-shirts without a doubt, because they are the biggest retail seller by far, maybe because people run through them quickly.”

He said that formal shirts and bags also sold well.

Your View

See Result