Entin Gartini on Amazon Designer Spotlight Interview.

Last fall Amazon Canada launched the first annual Amazon Fashion Video Series, which featured six Canadian fashion designers and was hosted by celebrity fashion stylist, Brad Goreski.

The series lived on the Amazon Canada Instagram page and each day they dropped a new designer spotlight, highlighting each designer story in a short 3-minute video. At the same time, they made each designer collection available for purchase to customers on Amazon.ca. When we click through to @amazonca’s IG page in the above link, the first “Fashion” story highlight features all of the Fashion Video Series content, which will live here indefinitely.

Amazon Canada today announced the return of the Amazon Designer Spotlight second edition, an exclusive online fashion series celebrating six Canadian designers, hosted by celebrity stylist Brad Goreski. The series takes Amazon.ca customers alongside Goreski as he unveils each designer’s personal and professional story in two-minute shorts dropping every day on the Amazon Canada Instagram channel (@amazonca). The first video drops today at 9 a.m. ET / 6 a.m. PT, with the final video premiering on Saturday, October 22. All six designer collections are also available now for customers to shop and discover at amazon.ca/DesignerSpotlight.

Enlisting the help of their friends and neighbours, collections in each video are worn by influencers that are unique to each designer’s brand, connecting creatives in communities across the country. Designers also share in the videos how they are choosing to pay it forward to Canada’s fashion community through their Amazon-powered $25,000 give-back-grant.

The Amazon Designer Spotlight is one of the many ways that Amazon continues to support and empower brand owners in Canada. Since 2003, Amazon.ca has made virtual shelf space available to Canada-based third-party sellers, many of which are small- and medium-sized businesses. To learn more about how Amazon works with business owners across Canada, click here to read the Amazon Canada Economic Report, released today. And to learn more about the Amazon Designer Spotlight, and to shop collections from the creators featured, visit amazon.ca/DesignerSpotlight. Follow the conversation online using #AmazonDesignerSpotlight to stay up to date on all things related to the series.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH AMAZON

What is your name and connection with the brand?

I use Lazarine (my daughter’s middle name) at first but when I will register this name was already taken so I don’t want to hustle thinking of another name, so I use my name Entin Gartini It’s easier

What was your first memorable experience with fashion?

My mom, it’s a seamstress in Indonesia and I was always with her while she sewing I was busy draping fabric into my body and making clothes, and one memory still flash in my mind, one day she has a client who is singing café to café, and this client doesn’t want to think the model and style so my mom need create and design what fit to her as a singer and performer, and I amaze with the result, my mom going bold with the design and palleted color she uses which is uncommon at that time in 1985. So, I see my mom have so much creativity and the clients are happy and always come back

And she often makes dresses for me, sometimes I feel shy to use them cos she is too creative and I think that style is too much for kids like me. Now I understand that the world needs creativity and bold designers like her.

What made you want to be a designer?

My mom inspires me and makes me love fashion

What were some barriers you had to overcome to become a designer in Canada?

– Language for sure since I just speak Indonesian and English but in Montreal required French.

– Money, I am working at Tim Horton’s for 5 years and continue in Super C to start my collections. I have 5 kids to take care of, so I help my husband with 50% of my salary and 50% for my business. And because of that, my husband need to work 2 times a day as security and Uber Eats driver

–Family, I am a full-time worker at that time and need to take care, of my last baby now she is 7 yo, I still need to cooking, cleaning but I always make time to learn, read, and plan my business

-The last one is I am an immigrant, but good think Canada is the best place for Immigrants

and Muslim I am the minority

When and how did you start your brand?

This dream and goal and desire it’s always there since I am 5 yo but my life is not easy and so many things happen in my life until I have the courage to start working on my dream job when I realize that I can’t apply for any job as a new comer in Canada .2 years after my transition and adaptation time I start to say it “ Maybe this the time”(2014) so I start learning, reading a book, doing research in College Montmorency library while I am doing French course support by the government. And start working at Tim Horton’s and take a sewing course after work two times a week. I still remember I have 6 friends and one teacher in sewing courses they were all surprised after knowing I just arrive at class after my night shift at Tim Horton at 6 I take a bus for 2 hours to go to the sewing class. And when I arrive home my kids all home time to cook for them and rest a few hours before I go work again at 10 pm. But all my friends said I do not look exhausted at all, well I guess my passion and goal were bigger than my tiredness. From Tim Horton’s salary, I am able to collect money for the first trial collection and one of my friends tell me that they have some free fashion shows in Ottawa and I am so excited to try them, My first fashion show is in 2017 in Ottawa.

Tell us about your brand.

The Entin Gartini brand is a young brand founded in 2015 under the first name Lazarine. This brand is all about handmade, artsy style and colorful.

Entin Gartini is a brand that emphasizes art, modern and colorful culture. Combining classical and modern culture into a unique masterpiece. Since I’m from Indonesia, I want to use this brand as a bridge to help improve the economy in Indonesia by helping MSMEs, choosing talented and unique artists and making them a stable businesses that can employ many people around them.

The pandemic has had a dire impact on economies around the world, especially for those who are clearly powerless and are small businesses. Here I am moved to empower more small businesses so that this creative community is alive, up and running

What are your brand values?

Customers are King: we only succeed when customers are happy and satisfied with our product.
Be Yourself: My Brand is a reflection of me, those colors in that collection it’s me
Embrace Uniqueness: everyone is unique, and we embrace that uniqueness
Integrity: honest and matching our behaviours to our words and taking responsibility for our actions.
Diversity: we’ve created a positive and inclusive culture, finding ways for everyone to belong. We invest in each other, and we win and learn as a team
Make an Impact and Give Back: Before the Pandemic started, my brand is always wanting to help Indonesian small businesses so I make collaboration with an artisan in Indonesia so he can hire all the neighbourhood to create my fabric which hand drawn batik, this help them to keep our Indonesian culture to the young generations. But after the pandemic and seeing the BIG IMPACT FOR ALL SMALL BUSINESS IN INDONESIA I want to do more for them. I want to make more collaboration with other small business-like accessories and other kinds of batik-like batik printing.

Where do you draw your inspiration from? From my beautiful country Indonesia, from Indonesia Ocean in Bali, Lombok etc. My second collection is from game

Are there any Indonesian traditions or styles you’ve incorporated into your style? Yes, the fabric batik is traditional fabric from Indonesia, and I modify from the classic motif to an abstract modern and colorful

What advice would you give to young Muslim designers wanting to enter the industry?

Be more creative and make modest fashion wearable for everyone and divers

What are you most excited about working with Amazon?

My collection, my creativity, and my brand will visible around the world which is opens the door for my brand to go more global, which means I can help more small businesses behind me.

How do you envision working with Amazon in the long run?

My Dream is BIG

This is such a BIG opportunity for my brand, so I am imagining in the future my store will be full of different collections on amazon store each year and gain loyal customers around the world I will give a big impact on Indonesian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) at the same time is helping Indonesia with increase export to Canada and United State

When we are talking about micro and medium businesses broader to social economic objectives, including job creation makes them a key priority area for achieving the Sustainable Development

Job creation through MSMEs will often directly benefit the poor and vulnerable, particularly women and youth, thereby directly reducing poverty, increasing income, and positively impacting household investments in education and health over time

But most important thing is to revive the traditional batik-making culture so this culture will never die

How does it feel to be an early Muslim designer in Canada? Your answer can talk about how you may have felt different in the fashion industry back then and what you did to overcome this. You don’t necessarily need to talk about modest clothing, but it is great to talk about how important it is to you that you entered an industry that mostly includes non-Muslim designers, and you did this because you believed you could.

my experience as a Muslim designer 7 years ago until now has been fine, nothing extreme, just got a lot of rejection from the models given by the event organizer, they don’t want to wear the hijab, and there is one event organizer who refuses a special request from me, e.g. Before or after my show, don’t throw out other designers in undergarments or too vulgar, and the answer is unpleasant, “Nothing special here, everyone is the same. If you want something special, please make your own fashion show. It makes me want to make a modest fashion show in the future.

What made you decide to design both modest and non-modest clothing?

There are 2 reasons for this question.

1.”diversity” I am tired I am sad and break my heart when I hear most of them my own friend and community that they are being bullied, being unwelcome because of their religion, I am tired to hear that someone claim my religion it’s the best or better, my opinion is We are all different and together we blend and love each other without discriminations.

2. The second reason I’m used to being friends with anyone, different religions, and different races but we love each other, and they are best friends. And most of them are Muslim or Muslim but they are not using hijab, so they start giving me comments like why you do not design the clothes for me, I am not using hijab and they really like the color and the design I made from there I realize that makes me aware to create a design that doesn’t specify for just some community. This same as for curvy style, they really like some brands but those brands do not make for XL so it’s almost the same context