The Indonesian Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa launched a fashion film entitled "Stories of Hope: Bolstering Indonesia-South Africa Relationships Through Fashion" on the embassy's YouTube channel (29/06).

The film showed collaboration of fashion designs by many designers from Indonesia and South Africa. There were at least 4 elements of collaboration in the film. First, it showed the collaboration of 6 fashion designers, consisting of 3 Indonesian designers namely Irmasari Joedawinata, Raegita Oktora, and Weda Githa as well as 3 South African designers namely Bianca Malan, Nabeela Francis, and Lisakhanya Matya. The designers has been collaborating virtually since November 2021.

The second is ethnic cloth collaboration. The film also showed beautiful works of the six designers that mixed Indonesian batik and South African shweshwe. While the third is the shooting location which showed amazing landscapes of the two nations namely Melasti Beach in Bali and Scarborough Beach in Cape Town.

The last is collaboration of the organizers which involved various people from Indonesia and South Africa. In producing the film, the Indonesian Embassy in Pretoria cooperated with the Indonesian Fashion Chamber, TFG - a South African retailer, and the Imprint Luxury - the facilitator from South Africa, supported by Indonesian Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry and Indonesian Trade Promotion Center (ITPC) Johannesburg.

Former Indonesian Ambassador to South Africa, who currently is the Secretary General for Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) in Mauritius, H.E. Salman Al Farisi said that the collaboration is aimed at not only strengthening the two countries' people interaction, but also promoting the wealth of culture and creative economy.

Besides, it also gave a message that even being colonized or enslaved in the past, both countries can rise and become influential in their regions. All this happens because of the people's stories of hope in overcoming challenges.