Jakarta fashion and food festival celebrates new styles, cuisines

Jakarta Fashion and Food Festival 2008 (JFFF) is presenting a carnival Saturday as the festival highlight in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta.

The carnival will feature, among other things, a four meter-high Betawi-style puppet ondel-ondel in batik dress.

Cut Mutia, spokeswoman of PT Summarecon Kelapa Gading (Summarecon), which is hosting the event, said the number of visitors attending this year's festival was higher than last year.

"Records show a 20 percent to 30 percent increase in visitors from an average of 80,000 to 90,000 per day last year to 96,000 to 120,000 during the past week," she said Thursday.

The festival, organized by the Jakarta administration, is part of the celebration of the city's 481st anniversary on June 22.

This year's JFFF, ending Sunday, offers a choice of fashion lines from 50 Indonesian designers with more than 54 businesses in the mall providing traditional Indonesian cuisine.

It also features two international designers from Thailand: Saksit Pisalasupongs and Phisit Jongnarangsin. The two worked together to develop " Tube", a brand they started in 1998.

Interest in traditional cuisine has been on the rise lately, and Kampung Tempo Doeloe, located in Kelapa Gading Mall, is one of the places Indonesians go for traditional dishes.

This year's list of events also offers several new attractions, including a wine and cheese expo, with wines and cheeses from Argentina, Canada, Chile, Italy, France, New Zealand, Portugal and South Africa.

The festival also features an exhibition of products from small and medium enterprises packaged in what is called "Fashion Village"