I like going to the mall. Just to hang out, unwind, or relax with friends, especially in the sweltering heat of Surabaya. The mall offers a kind of oasis for me, though perhaps you could argue that it is only a mirage… In addition to cooling myself off, I can do some sightseeing at the mall. My interest is not just in the items for sale and store window displays; I also like to pay attention to the looks and behavior of the people in the mall. It seemed like a staged theater where we all watch each other. There are even some recurring patterns in the costumes, some setting for the kind of “norm” or the general fashion trend in certain malls. In the language of marketing, this is perhaps called segmentation, positioning, or differentiation. It’s like watching fashion runway shows, a different style on display at each mall. Here are some malls which I think have the most prominent fashion styles.

Royal Plaza

Royal Plaza is located in South Surabaya. Each time I go to Royal, I often see young people dressed in plaid shirts and a pair of skinny jeans or “celana pensil” (you know, the pair that gets really narrow and tight at the bottom), paired with sneakers or sandals. The color can be blue or black, usually rather mbulak (faded), sometimes in gray tatters. A lot of young people at this mall also dye their hair blond or brown, complete with dry bonding, considerably flashy considering their dark skin colours. They have the feistiness to combine all of them, and this becomes a distinctive style which is quite popular in Royal Plaza.

Most of the clothes have no particular brand. When I ask some of the visitors, most replied that they prefer comfort to brand. Most of them walk to the Royal Plaza to hang out after returning from campus, since it happens that Royal Plaza is close to one of the universities in Surabaya. Most people go to the Royal Plaza to relax or to buy goods. For example, Eka wore a white and black plaid shirt while buying a cake at the Royal. So here a lot of people dress modestly and unassumingly. Perhaps they go directly from their home to the Royal.

Surabaya Town Square

Surabaya Town Square, better known as Sutos, is one of the main hangout places among Surabaya young people, especially the middle class and above. Unlike other malls, the main attraction is the number of food outlets and cafes, with opening hours until midnight. (The average café and restaurant at the other malls in Surabaya close at 10-11pm.) Obviously the main target is to provide the space for young people to hang out, especially on Saturday or Sunday night, where it usually closes even later.

The fashion of many visitors to Sutos honestly left me stunned. Most visitors look like they really dress themselves up according to the latest trends. You can see various styles ranging from formal wear dresses, suits, blazers, shirts, semi formal blouse, and suits to customized DIY modification. Anja, for example, dressed up wearing an oversized man’s t-shirt. Anja modified it so that it looks like a long casual dress, combined with Doc Marten boots. “No particular reason, I just have to be outstanding each time in dressing up,” said Anja amiably, when asked why she dressed so.

The majority of visitors Sutos come to hang out, people watch, or wander around, because Sutos has a lively, youthful atmosphere. However, when they hang out, patrons’ clothes invariably tend to look more fashionable, more dressed up. “Well you can’t really dress up like this to the Royal,” said Nina, who came to Sutos after other events.

Galaxy Mall

In Galaxy Mall, on the other hand, one thing that stood out was the number of people wearing short, ranging from baggy pants to hot pants. Visitors usually mix these shorts with a variety of tops. As an example, there was a junior high school girl who combined formal hotpants with a dark blue blouse, flat shoes, and a clutch. She said that that’s the way she dressed up every day. Another teenager I met near XXI Cinema admitted to wearing clothes like that to look sexy. A couple walking around in shorts said that they felt comfortable and relaxed.

Here I saw shorts combined with a variety of tops in a way that was fashionable and casual at the same time. This style is just as relaxed, but in contrast to the majority of the clothing trends in Royal Plaza. At Galaxy we see more skin displayed, which might not be comfortably displayed in some other places in Surabaya. Perhaps this has to do with security in the mall, because Galaxy is one of the stricter malls in Surabaya regarding entry-exit control. The security guards at the entrance-exit tended to be more persistent, whereas in other malls this security procedure tends to be neglected. There is also the signage “no slippers” at the entrance. To some extent this precludes certain classes from entering Galaxy Mall, and thus gave the impression of “safety” to some of the visitors. No need to worry about being groped or wolf-whistled here because after all, so many others are wearing similar clothing.

Tunjungan Plaza, Grand City, Ciputra World

I still remember the beginning of my stay in Surabaya; the first mall I visited was Tunjungan Plaza. Tunjungan Plaza, familiarly abbreviated as TP, is a vast block of malls consisting of TP1, TP2, and TP3. TP4 is currently being built. This will replace the tongue-in-cheek joke to call the Sunday market at Tugu Pahlawan from TP4 to TP5.

The first time I visited Tunjungan Plaza, my legs became sore from walking (even despite the fact that I wasn’t even wearing high heels—imagine how those women did it!). In TP, I think, we have quite diverse visitors coming from various backgrounds,  maybe because it’s such a large complex. Here there is also no ban on wearing sandals, in contrast to some other malls which position themselves as being more exclusive. I cannot find any distintive recurring fashion trends worn by mall visitors at TP. Some are dressed in school uniforms, some as young executives, some dressed in Korean styles, or some just in casual dress.

This is a bit similar to Grand City, a newer mall which opened in 2011. Visitors come from all walks of life. However, visitors to Grand City dressed up a bit more formally than the visitors Tunjungan Plaza, probably because Grand City is a newer mall. According to a friend who has long observed casual fashion in Surabaya, in Grand City we can occasionally find what she termed Randies style. What is it? “Rapi tapi Indies, neat but Indie: stylish, neat, shirt buttoned up to the neck.”

Let’s continue to the Ciputra World. This is also another new mall, opened in 2012. It is a large mall like Tunjungan Plaza and Grand City, but with a different food court concept than the other malls. The crowd at Ciputra World also comes from various backgrounds. However, fashion taste here is quite interesting; although there is no pattern that stands out, the visitors here dress casually but still fashionably.

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These are just a few of the malls in Surabaya .. Since I was born and raised in Bontang, to friends  born and bred in Surabaya, I am considered a “country rat”. (Oh well. In Jakarta, all of us from Surabaya will likely be considered country rats, “from Java”, the exact same island that Jakarta is on… People are indeed weird.) So actually I was a little bit surprised and curious to see how we have some stereotypes of certain patterns in shopping malls in Surabaya. There are still plenty of other shopping complexes in Surabaya, for example Surabaya Plaza, also known as Delta Plaza, BG Junction which was once the Wijaya, and Lenmarc, a new mall built ​​with very luxurious interior, but still empty of visitors and tenants. I chose the malls above because, at least at the time I did this writing, I could find some recurring patterns, a few striking trends in the way visitors to those malls dress. To some extent we may be able to guess some of the reasons.

However, considering the transient nature of fashiont trends, please do not be surprised, or even mad, if you find the descriptions above do not fit. Fashion, like people, change very quickly. By the time this article has been published, the patterns and trends that I have observed may have changed. Then, it will be up to you to make your own observations and discover the new and changing fashion trends on display at Surabaya’s malls.

English translation edited by Noel Schroeder

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