CHINESE DESIGNER ENJOYS OLYMPIC BOOST
The upcoming Winter Olympics is adding sparkle to a young costume designer’s growing business, as more Chinese take to the ice and seek tailor-made outfits for figure skating.
Zhang Yifan has seen business boom since Beijing won its bid for the 2022 Olympics and began a campaign to lure 300 million Chinese to embrace snow and ice sports.
“The effect is showing up on ice rinks,” said Zhang, 25.
But while fashion on the ice has long been a highlight of Olympic figure skating, there have been few choices for Chinese skaters until recently.
Zhang noticed the gap in the market when her teenage sister, Zhang Yixuan, began competing in figure skating but struggled to find outfits that matched her music.
A student of theatre costume design at the time, the older Zhang quickly switched to skating costumes, learning the trade by experimenting on her sister.
“With figure skating, the drama just moves from the stage onto the ice,” she told Reuters during a recent visit to her studio in Beijing.
Skating outfits have to combine elegance with function so they can withstand powerful twists and turns on the ice. And crystals sewn onto dresses cannot be so heavy that they weigh the athletes down.
Though Zhang Yixuan is not on the national team, her outfits for regional competitions are just as glamorous.
At a recent training session, she showed off a jet-black jumpsuit, embellished with crystals on one shoulder and gold and black sequins across the body and sleeves.
The outfits, all handmade, take around a month to make and cost up to 15,000 yuan (US$2,350) each.
Zhang is inspired by the Japanese designer Satomi Ito, whose costumes for two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu are “stunning, a perfect match with his music”.
But she also looks to other art forms and Chinese culture for inspiration.
For her sister Yixuan, who started out wearing second-hand outfits handed down by teammates, they make her feel like the “most beautiful princess in the world”.
“With figure skating, the drama just moves from the stage onto the ice”
ZHANG YIFAN
“Foreign tourists are still zero. What keeps us alive are the local tourists now” MADE YOGI ANANTAWIJAYA Transport business owner
Wayan Sentiani, 36, is earning barely a tenth of what she used to make from selling T-shirts and sarongs near Kuta beach. For about a decade, she would take in up to 2 million rupiah (US$140) a day from mostly Australian, Chinese and European shoppers.
“Yesterday, I opened the shop from 7am until 7pm and only sold one piece worth 75,000 rupiah ($5.20). Most of our days here go by like that,” Sentiani said recently. “I really hope the foreign tourists will come back soon.”
Three months since reopening its borders to international arrivals, Bali seems a long way from returning to its days of fully booked hotel rooms, busy restaurants and crowded beaches.
In October, only two foreign visitors arrived, compared with half a million in the same month in 2019. Official figures released last month put total foreign arrivals from January to October at 45. In 2019, the island welcomed 6.2 million visitors from abroad.
Not a single direct international flight has landed in Bali since the Oct 14 reopening, and new quarantine rules to deal with the Omicron coronavirus variant have made predicting a return to normal harder.
However, the official statistics can be slightly misleading, the South China Morning Post has pointed out. Between January and August last year, 1.06 million foreigners arrived in the country by flying to other Indonesian islands, according to Statistics Indonesia. Scores then caught domestic flights to Bali.
The year-end holiday season was seen as a key trial for Bali — if the curcurbs rent can keep the virus under conthe trol, government might ease restrictions further to let the tourism sector rebound faster.
“It is like we are sailing between two reefs: health and economy,” said IGustiAgung Ngurah Rai Suryawijaya, deputy chairman of the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants Association.
Entering Bali is more difficult than other beach destinations in the region. Tra y for a visa that requires alocalsponsor, hold international health insurance and quarantine for seven to
10 days (reduced from 14 earlier). In rival destinations such as Phuket in Thailand and Phu Quoc in Vietnam, quarantine is waived for vaccinated visitors.
Indonesia has reason to be especially wary of another virus spike. It battled one of the world’s worst outbreaks in the middle of last year, leading to the deaths of more than 140,000 people. The country’s vaccination programme has also fallen behind its neighbours with just 42% of people fully inoculated, rendering it more vulnerable.
Bali’s economy has borne the brunt of that vigilance as it shrank 9.3% in 2020, the worst among all Indonesian provinces. Its GDP fell 3.4% in the first nine months of 2021.
For PT Bukit Uluwatu Villa, a luxury resort operator on the island, that means no expansion plans until there are clear signs of an economic rebound. Its Alila resorts had average occupancy of about 13% in November, compared with 73% in 2019.
With the rate likely to rise only to 30% in 2022, the company isn’t planning on hiring new workers either, said corporate secretary Benita Sofia.
Hotels and restaurants on Bali are pinning their hopes on the upcoming meetings of the G20, which Indonesia chairs this year. The group’s summit is scheduled for October on the island, and government officials have been extolling the island’s features in their speeches and inviting people to attend side events.
Online hotel reservations signal better days ahead. Bookings in December were 57% lower than in the same period in 2019, but that was an improvement from August when they were 80% less, according to the market research company YipitData.
That’s barely enough to keep Made Yogi Anantawijaya’s transport business afloat. He left his job as a finance ministry official a decade ago to start the venture with his brother, but the pandemic has forced him to restructure loans, reduce workers and sell off several buses and cars to keep going. Now, orders are starting to trickle in, mostly from domestic travellers.
“Foreign tourists are still zero,” said Yogi, 38. “What keeps us alive are the local tourists now.”