Bali: it's a favoured haunt for tired Australians seeking an island escape. Stray from the beach-side banana lounges however and you will find a textile manufacturing industry that has been described as on the brink of becoming the “new China”.
Among the Australian fashion designers racking up hours in Bali is Guanabana's Linda Bergskas. The director of the women's ready-to-wear label spends 40 per cent of the year there, overseeing production in four different factories.
“A lot of people actually get really surprised when they come and visit our factory because it's not what they envisioned at all because it's really gorgeous,” Bergskas says. “We get to have a design studio at the factory, it's in the jungle, has beautiful views and it's a nice place to work.”
The designer has been working in Bali for five years, after looking for a manufacturer that wouldn't insist on minimum runs.
“That's one of the great benefits with Bali, there is no minimum. I knew that the prices were a lot higher but that's what it's going to be like when you're not doing big quantities anyway.”
Among other benefits of Bali cited by Bergskas are the “really good” conditions for factory employees and its proximity to Australia and subsequent cheap freight costs. Guanabana's manufacturers also make regular trips to Australia to liaise with Bergskas and her team.
“It really depends on the factory but some of them are really good with silk and some of them are really good with embellishments,” Bergskas says. “There's not that many of them that are but once you get some good ones, they're really good.”
This capacity for hand-crafted embellishment is what drew fellow designer, Premal Patel, to Bali for the first time this year. The man behind label Premonition has been designing menswear for eight years, but debuted womenswear for autumn/winter 2011.
For spring/summer 2011/12, 10 per cent of his womenswear is being constructed in Bali. Patel says the same level of construction could not be offered by Chinese manufacturers.
“We sent [the designs] to about five factories and all five factories said, 'too hard, can't do it.'”
Now, he has one factory producing his womenswear under the watchful eyes of a Australian-born, Bali-dwelling agent recommended to Patel by word of mouth.
“She's got her own sourcing agency, so basically you give her the specs and she goes to the factories and sees which is the best factory to give it to. She does all the fittings with us on Skype so we don't have to send samples back and forth.”
Of the samples he has seen, Patel has been impressed by the quality in comparison to China. There are downsides to manufacturing in Indonesia, however.
Patel nominates an avalanche of national holidays, higher labour expenses and a lack of fabric. Bergskas says it's quality control that is her Balinese nemesis.
“We've contracted a Canadian company based in Bali who do all the quality control for us now. We've only just started with this after giving up on trying to do it ourselves.”
Bergskas says her Balinese manufacturers have welcomed the change.
“They realised we needed help. They aren't just there picking on them, they're actually there teaching them.”
After five years in Bali, Bergskas gave Indian manufacturing a whirl for the first time for her autumn/winter 2011 production.
“We moved all of our knits and the availability of yarn is much greater in India and we've also seen a huge improvement of the quality because it's not one of Bali's strongest areas.”
Also relocated to India manufacturers have been any garments featuring crochet and leather. Unlike her frequent trips to Bali, Bergskas has never been to India, sourcing her current Indian agent via an unsolicited email. She is beyond satisfied with the work that has come back from the sub-continent.
“We got lucky,” Bergskas says of the gamble.
Less happy with India are Patal and fellow Australian designer Valerie Tolosa.
“I find in India they always say things are ready and done and they're just [not],” Patel says.
For Tolosa, the battle was over costs.
“It would always fluctuate. The factory that we were dealing with, the quality was quite good but the price would change every week. As the dollar would go up and down it'd be changed again, we'd have to change again, it was just too hard.”
After becoming sick of onshore manufacturers as well – “the quality wasn't there, it wasn't on time, even the language barrier was really hard” – Tolosa commenced manufacturing in China two years ago. She is happy with what China has offered her nine-year-old label.
“The pricing with respect to me hasn't gone up that much yet and even if it has gone up it's only by a little bit. For me, it doesn't really affect our bottom line because our margins are higher anyway offshore.”
She knows, however, that it's a battle to find a reliable Chinese manufacturer who will produce top quality minimum runs. Now that she's found them, Tolosa is setting up an agency to help steer other emerging designers to the right manufacturers in overseas markets.
Patel backs her approach.
“My advice as a designer is don't go direct to a factory,” he warns. “If you go through an agent, then that agent's responsible. Because they're giving other brands to the factory, the factory won't stuff them up.”