Museum of a "genius"

On the recommendation of a couple of friends, I signed up to take a tour of the Museum Harry Darsono. I got dropped off at the front gate and joined a couple of ladies from Finland to wait for the rest of the day's tour group to arrive. Included in our group of 13 was an Ambassador to Indonesia and the wife of another diplomat.

After replacing our shoes with the supplied slippers or flip flops, we entered the museum.

Who is Harry Darsono? I can only give you a tiny glimpse into this man because there is just so much to tell. He is a world famous textile designer and he brought haute couture to Indonesia. Because I live in the "wearing what's comfortable" segment of the fashion world—and dress up only when I absolutely must—I had never heard of this man. I learned a lot about Harry Darsono as he personally led our tour.  In the textile design category, he has designed gowns for such notables as Princess Diana, Queen Rania of Jordan, Queen Sinkit of Thailand, Miss World contestants and many, many more. Even though I would never wear these outfits, I can certainly appreciate the art and techniques to create them.

He is a musician (plays 13 instruments), sculptor, architect, academic professor, business consultant, multi-linguist and philanthropist. Harry holds a PhD in Art and Design from a school in France and a PhD in Philosophy and Psychology from Oxford. He's created hand-sewn costumes of hand-woven silks for leading actors for stage productions such as Madame Butterfly, King Lear, Othello, Romeo & Juliet, Phantom of the Opera (including Kabuki versions) staged in many countries.

Harry's story: Harry Darsono has had a difficult life. Suffering from severe ADHD he was expelled repeatedly from traditional schools. He misbehaved and teachers misunderstood his hyperactivity. Due to his issues,  he was unable to speak for many, many years. Harry says he's lucky because his parents did not beat him or abandon him. He spoke about his seven siblings and referred to himself as the "monster" in the middle. It did help that his parents were well off. They kept trying to help him. He spent some time in a school for the deaf and mute even though he was not deaf or mute. Speaking only became possible for Harry after an uncle noticed Harry's musical ability and suggested he try to sing. Other early therapies included drawing and painting. While he did learn sign language to communicate, he also learned to draw extremely rapidly because his family and teachers had little patience when communicating with him. Harry also learned to sew. The process of drawing, painting, sewing helped him gain some peace and stability. He also suffered from seizures. A therapist discovered that if Harry touched the therapist's hair he became more calm and focused. He was given silk cocoons instead. Pulling on the silk worked just like the hair and this got Harry interested in silk weaving.. Threads were dyed and Harry learned to embroider. When still a child, Harry embroidered this bird using silk threads. Even the background is different colored silk threads.

While attending school in France, his abundant energy prevented lengthy sleep so he channeled the energy into sewing and creating intricately woven fabrics, wall decors and embroidery pieces. He says he sleeps only 2.5-3 hours.

A little bit about the museum itself. It is a 3-story baroque building. Only three tours are allowed per week. The value of many of the items in the collections is so high the items are not stored on site. Each tour morning, the items are trucked in vaults to the museum. Immediately after the conclusion of the tour, the items are packed back into the three trucks and returned to storage vaults.
In addition to the many artworks of Harry Darsono, the museum also houses representative samples of his various collections. We saw a piano originally owned by Chopin. There was a perfume fountain from the court of Louis XVI.

A major portion of the collection on exhibit are gowns he designed for Princess Diana. Harry apparently met Diana before she became a school teacher. If I've gotten this right, his British godmother is the sister-in-law of novelist Barbara Cartland and step-grandmother of Princess Di. After Diana married into the royals, Harry Darsono designed gowns for her and many were inspired by Javan Wayang designs (puppets- more on this in another post).

Here are just a few shots of the too numerous to count gowns we saw during the tour. All of the gowns are created from hand-woven silk fabrics. The silk cloth is really amazing. It is woven in such a way it really doesn't wrinkle. Each one is a one of a kind. He includes his initials or signature in the design so it really cannot be copied. Some of the gowns contain real gold beads and sequins or real gold thread or even fabrics woven from real gold threads and many contain diamonds and other gemstones

The dress on the right was worn by Queen Rania of Jordon. The bodice of the dress is covered with real gold beads and gold sequins and is covered with tiny silk thread knots. One jacket was covered with over 2 million knots.

The left dress is covered in pearls and diamonds and was worn by the Queen of Thailand during her coronation ball ( I think).  The center dress was one inspired by the Indonesian Wayang and was worn by Princess Diana.

The left and right dresses belonged to Princess Diana. The center dress belonged to a royal from Norway.

The center dress was inspired by a cow and is beaded. The right dress is all beaded with 3D textural applique. Absolutely beautiful work. Again, all dresses hand created.

I didn't include photos of any of the theater costumes (I took a lot of photos) but Harry did say that the theater folk always tried to stop Harry from hand creating all of the costumes. He insisted they held up better and rightly so. Some of the costumes were worn over decades. He even designed a mask for a Phantom of the Opera production. The gold mask was to be worn only for the inaugural first week (yes, real gold). The silver/gemstone was commissioned to be used after the first week.

I mentioned Harry was also a sculptor?  Harry's parents sent him a palm root ball perhaps thinking he would plant it. He had other ideas.

Harry designed silver patterns and china patterns. This is a tea set Harry designed for Princess Diana to serve High Tea.

Also in the collection is a sapphire tiara Harry designed for Diana. She auctioned items a long time ago to raise money for her charities and Harry was able to re-acquire them. We were able to try he tiara on- he placed it on our heads with gloved hands- and stepped away briefly for someone to take a photo. The lady that took my picture was a little shaky so it's a blurry photo but here I am in a sapphire tiara previously worn by Princess Diana...

Even with such widespread accomplishments in the arts, Harry Darsono denies it when someone labels him a "genius". He says anyone can do it. It just takes hard work.

And in his spare time he helps to support youths with ADHD through foundation work and employment.

Disclaimer: If you choose to do further research on Harry and any of my facts are not accurate, I apologize. In the course of the nearly 5 hour tour he spoke non-stop. Friends suggested the tour lasted about 3 hours. Perhaps the presence of the Ambassador extended the tour time?