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Entertainment

The Best Place to Find Timeless Fashion Isn’t In a Mall

We dig for some serious finds in Central Jakarta’s Pasar Senen.
All photos by Muhammad Ishomuddin.

Pasar Senen is Jakarta's comeback kid. The traditional market suffered not one, but two massive fires in recent years, torching more than 1,600 individual stalls in the most-recent blaze. But this pasar, the city's go-to spot for second-hand clothes, just soldiered on. Some vendors moved outside the pasar. Others remained inside or moved to Blok V, which is located right behind the section of the market that went up in flames.

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The market is like one massive walk-in closet, a musty second-hand store where everything costs less than Rp 100,000 ($7.50 USD) and the only thing standing between you and an amazing find is your level of patience. There are at least 400 individual stalls, each of them selling a specific kind of clothes. Some sell military surplus. Others Oxford shirts. There's women's clothing, underwear (second-hand underwear? Ewww) and nightgowns.

Inside the pasar, I met Jack Sitanjak, a vendor all the way from Medan, North Sumatra. He's one of the lucky ones, a clothes seller who can afford to rent a stall inside the market. Plenty of others are stuck outside selling clothes on the sidewalk. Still, it's like 40 degrees inside and super crowded.

"Initially I refused to sell here," Jack told me. "The location is way in the back. But I had no choice. My family needs to eat."

Jack first moved to Jakarta as an unskilled laborer in 1997 and began to search for work. By 2002, he decided to sell second-hand clothes, despite having zero knowledge of the textile industry. Still, he dove into his new endeavor, searching out suppliers and renting a stall of his own.

The tiny 1 meter by 12 meter stall costs Rp 120,000 ($9 USD) a month. It's cheap enough that he can eck out a tiny profit, mostly off hoodies and jackets.

"Bang, why don't you take a photo of this?" he said as he held up a black Nike jacket. "Promote this for me. These two items are hot at the moment."

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Pasar Senen is an antidote to Jakarta's mall culture. Most of the city's malls are the home of disposable fast-fashion made by international chains and sold in air conditioned stores. The clothes in Pasar Senen refuse to be disposed. They're classics that continue to live on, even after someone else, usually in some foreign country, threw them in a donations bin.

"Pasar Senen used to have a department store as well, but people still flocked to the market," said Buyung, a vendor who ran a stall next door to Jack.

The market encourages interaction. Most of the clothes are for sale for around Rp 5,000 ($0.37 USD) but some go as high as Rp 80,000 ($6 USD). Bargaining for a better price is expected. The clothes come from overseas in big sacks, each of which costs as much as Rp 5 million ($376 USD). Sometimes the sack is packed with gems. Other times it's mostly duds. It's all sort of a gamble.

"You need a lot of capital to do this," Jack said. "Sometimes you get defective items as well. It's like buying a pig in a poke."

It all comes down to luck. But as I eyed a grey Air Jordan sweater on my way out the door, I thought, where else can I look good on Instagram without breaking the bank?