“It’s edgy.
It’s daring—very much attuned to the current wave of ‘freedom of expression’,” said Jessie Setiono of Louis Vuitton’s fall/winter 2019 collection for women. “It is masculine in its femininity and feminine in its masculinity.”
A practicing capital market lawyer at a top-tier law firm in Jakarta, Jessie was in Tokyo during the French fashion house’s press presentation last May, where she graciously took the role of model for a special fashion shoot with Prestige
Defining her own fashion style as practical, Indonesiaborn Jessie, who lived and studied in Australia during her formative years, is no stranger in the modelling realm, having dabbled in the industry since she was a teenager. For her, modelling is a passion she followed while pursuing her studies and long-term career. Jessie studied commerce at Curtin University in Australia and later studied law at Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) in Indonesia.
As someone who enjoys working in a dynamic environment, lawyering provided her valuable experiences. “The skills that I acquire, the people that I work with, the clients I work for,” she elaborates, “is part of the learning process to make me a better professional.”
As our conversation went on, we asked this lawyer, who is currently residing in Indonesia but has lived in different parts of the world, what her views are on the global #MeToo movement if it was to be implemented in Indonesia.
“Sexual harassment and assault are very much a prevalent issue in Indonesia. It needs to be addressed one way or another. However, the #MeToo movement may likely lead to sound over substance in Indonesia. We have yet to address the very fundamental issues such as: Are our women empowered enough to speak out? Can our women be liberated and freed from the roles that society has imposed on them? Can our women be independent? Do we have a conducive enforcement system to support our rights? We should seek to address these fundamental issues in parallel than just to simply march to the #MeToo movement. Otherwise, our women might as well go to battle without helmets on.”
On balancing work and personal life, Jessie admits: “This is something that I still struggle to deal with every day given the fast-paced and highly demanding nature of my work. These days I try to invest into my personal life by meditating, exercising, spending time with friends and family, and travel every now and then.”
“These days I try to invest into my personal life by meditating, exercising, spending time with friends and family, and travel every now and then”
“During my teenage years, I came across a letter written by F. Scott Fitzgerald to his 11-year-old daughter. An excerpt of the letter goes: ‘Don’t worry about mosquitoes, don’t worry about flies, don’t worry about insects in general…’” mused Jessie. “Despite being written almost a century ago, it is still very much relevant today. We tend to forget about the scale of certain issues that we face every day, that may not even matter in life when you see it from a macro perspective.”