About Dewi

Dewi

Dewi is an Indonesian monthly women's magazine devoted to fashion, beauty and an upscale lifestyle, published in Jakarta in the Indonesian language. First issued in November 1991, it occupies a distinct place in Indonesian publishing as, in the description used by the Indonesian Wikipedia and drawn from the magazine's own about page, the first publication to record the high-end lifestyle in Indonesia. Other contemporary descriptions have called it the first and largest high-end fashion and lifestyle magazine in the country, and a luxury fashion publication. That positioning sets it apart from broader women's magazines. Where a general women's title might cover family, household and career alongside fashion, Dewi was created specifically for readers who wanted fashion and sophisticated living treated as the main subject, in Indonesian, from an Indonesian editorial base.

Launch in November 1991

Dewi was first published in November 1991. The magazine's own retrospective writing, published on its website in 2022 when it looked back through its archive, confirms the date directly: the team reopened the first edition, dated November 1991, and found in it dozens of pages of writing and styling direction from an early contributor discussed below. The same retrospective explains the gap the new magazine was meant to fill. In 1991, it says, there was not yet a high-end lifestyle magazine that urban women in Indonesia could use as a guide. Dewi was born, in its own account, in a society hungry for information about a cosmopolitan lifestyle. That founding idea is also reflected in later academic study of the magazine, which describes Dewi as an Indonesian-origin fashion and lifestyle magazine carrying the tagline Gaya Kosmopolitan, or Cosmopolitan Style. The launch was therefore not presented as a local edition of a foreign title. Unlike franchised international magazines that later operated in Indonesia, Dewi originated in Indonesia, a point underlined in Indonesian research comparing it with franchised titles, which notes its Indonesian origin alongside high standards in its presentation, display and reviewing.

Publisher and the Femina Group family

Dewi belongs to the publishing family built around Femina. The Indonesian Wikipedia lists its publisher as PT Chandra Sakti, previously PT Gaya Favorit Press, and lists its company as GCM Group. PT Gaya Favorit Press is the historic publisher associated with the Femina Group, the group that began with Femina magazine in 1972. Contemporary Jakarta Post reporting in the late 1990s described Dewi and Femina as sister publications, described Mirta Kartohadiprodjo as director of both magazines, and identified her as president director of PT Gaya Favorit Press, publisher of Femina. Later Femina Group profiles and university studies of the group likewise list Dewi among the group's magazines, alongside titles such as Femina, Gadis and Ayahbunda. A 1997 Jakarta Post report on Femina's twenty-fifth anniversary also listed Dewi among Femina's four sister magazines at that time, together with Gadis, Ayahbunda and Sartika. That family relationship matters for understanding Dewi. It was not a standalone fashion venture launched in isolation, but a specialised extension of a women's publishing house that already knew how to address Indonesian women readers through different titles for different ages and interests.

Relationship to Femina

The relationship to Femina explains both Dewi's creation and its audience. Femina, founded in 1972, is described in its own history as Indonesia's first women's magazine of its era, created to accommodate the aspirations of Indonesian women. As the group developed, it addressed specific needs through specialised magazines. A Jakarta Post account of Femina's continuity and change summarised that segmentation plainly, identifying Ayah Bunda with parenting, Gadis with girls, and Dewi Magazine with young female executives. Other group histories note that Mirta Kartohadiprodjo, Femina's first editor-in-chief from 1972 to 1982, went on to lead the group's women's magazines, including Gadis, Ayahbunda and Dewi. In other words, Femina supplied the broad platform and the institutional experience, while Dewi was the group's sharper, more fashion-led and more premium expression. The two titles shared leadership in the 1990s, shared a publisher, and were discussed together by the Jakarta Post when economic pressure affected Indonesian publishing, but they did not do the same editorial job. Femina spoke to women across the routines of modern life, while Dewi concentrated on fashion, beauty and the visible culture of an affluent, cosmopolitan life.

Positioning as a premium and cosmopolitan title

Dewi's positioning has been remarkably consistent in the sources that describe it. Its own media profile, quoted in Indonesian academic research, defines it as a premium fashion, beauty and lifestyle magazine aimed at the upper level of society, described in that profile with the phrase crème de la crème, and at readers open to the evolution of fashion. The same quoted profile calls Dewi a true arbiter of good taste and popular culture and a source of inspiration for that audience and for those at the forefront of trend evolution. Academic analysis of the cosmopolitan woman in Dewi reaches a similar conclusion from the content itself. It found the cosmopolitan lifestyle shown through clothing following global seasonal trends and designed by well-known Indonesian and foreign designers, through make-up and hair following world trends and presented as elegant, and through hobbies that included luxury travel abroad, tasting menus and restaurants abroad, and collecting household goods with international labels. Readers do not need to accept every image as typical of Indonesian life to understand the editorial promise: Dewi offered a window onto a polished, international standard of dressing and living, presented for Indonesian women in their own language.

Content: fashion, beauty, food and lifestyle

The core content, as summarised by the Indonesian Wikipedia, is fashion, beauty, culinary matters and lifestyle, and related subjects. Fashion is the centre of gravity. Dewi covers designers, collections, styling and the seasonal movement of clothing, and its early pages were already filled with fashion writing and styling direction. Beauty belongs naturally alongside that fashion coverage, because make-up, hair and personal presentation are part of how the magazine constructs the complete look it discusses. Culinary and lifestyle coverage widens the frame beyond the wardrobe. Restaurants, travel, art, interiors and social life are the settings in which the fashion the magazine celebrates is worn and lived. Contemporary coverage of Jakarta social and fashion life in the Jakarta Post in the mid-2000s placed Dewi alongside Harper's Bazaar and Prestige among the magazines whose people pages showed what Jakarta's social set was wearing and which brands and designers were in favour, a small but telling indication that Dewi was read not only as a fashion guide but also as a record of a particular social world. Its digital edition today organises material in a similar spirit, with news and runway reporting among the sections visible on its magazine website.

Audience and readers

The audience described in the verified sources is adult, female, urban and affluent in aspiration or in fact. The Jakarta Post's segmentation described Dewi as the Femina Group title for young female executives. Its media profile, as quoted in research, addressed it to upper-class socialites and to readers open-minded about fashion's evolution, and characterised its readers through ideas such as being trendsetting, living life to the fullest, and worshipping quality and adoring luxury while knowing how to obtain them. Those phrases come from the magazine's own self-description as reproduced in research, and they should be read as positioning rather than as a census of every reader. What they establish, together with the Jakarta Post description, is intention: Dewi was not aimed at teenagers, who were served elsewhere in the Femina family by Gadis, and it was not aimed primarily at readers seeking only practical household advice. It was aimed at working and socially active women with the income, interest or ambition to engage seriously with fashion and luxury goods. That is also why advertisers of branded goods were so important to it, a fact made explicit during the economic crisis of the late 1990s, discussed below.

Early editorial voice and Samuel Mulia

One early figure is unusually well documented by Dewi itself. Samuel Mulia, a fashion and lifestyle journalist who died in June 2022, shaped Indonesian fashion in the era when Dewi was born, according to the magazine's memorial to him. Dewi recalled that he had studied fashion journalism in Paris after leaving medical studies at Universitas Udayana, that he applied to the Femina Group in 1989, and that he was accepted and held for Dewi, which was then still being prepared for publication. His writing and styling filled dozens of pages of the first November 1991 edition, including pieces evoked by Dewi decades later for their knowledge of Paris fashion and of Givenchy, at a time when, the magazine notes, access to information was still very limited. M. N. Retno Murti, a former editor-in-chief of Dewi who had recruited him, is quoted remembering his sharp judgements and his insistence on perfection, and Dewi records that he left the magazine in 2000. The memorial is valuable beyond biography. It shows what kind of expertise the new title wanted at its birth: a writer who travelled to Paris, who could judge designers critically rather than only promote them, and who could translate global fashion for Indonesian readers before instant digital access existed.

Dewi Fashion Knights and Indonesian designers

Dewi's most visible public role is Dewi Fashion Knights, its curated showcase at Jakarta Fashion Week. Dewi states that the initiative has been held since 2008, and reporting on Jakarta Fashion Week 2010/2011 confirms that it had first appeared at Jakarta Fashion Week 2008/2009, that it served as the closing event, and that it was intended as a celebration of the Indonesian fashion world. In that account Dewi, described as a leading magazine and fashion trendsetter in Indonesia, selected fashion knights considered the best representatives of the Indonesian contemporary spirit, with visions that would shape the future of Indonesian fashion. The format has endured. Dewi's own explanation in 2023 says selected designers pass through a long curation process by the Dewi editorial team, and that selection is based on creativity in exploration, consistency, strong design character, maturity in the work and skill in designing. Its list of past knights includes Adrian Gan, Auguste Soesastro, Barli Asmara, Deden Siswanto, Denny Wirawan, Didi Budiardjo, Felicia Budi, Ghea Panggabean, Jeffry Tan, Lulu Lutfi Labibi, Mel Ahyar, Oscar Lawalata, Peggy Hartanto, Priyo Oktaviano, Rinaldy A. Yunardi, Sapto Djojokartiko, Sebastian Gunawan, Stella Rissa, Tex Saverio, Toton and Vinora Ng. Later editions kept the closing role: reporting on the 2014 event described a panel that included Dewi and Femina Group figures assessing designers on character, craftsmanship, innovation, consistency, appeal and potential, and coverage of Jakarta Fashion Week in the mid-2020s still describes Dewi Fashion Knights as the anticipated finale presenting selected Indonesian designers. Through this platform, the magazine's support for Indonesian designers is not only a matter of printing their collections. It gives chosen designers a prestigious runway closing, judged by editorial standards, in front of the fashion industry.

Surviving economic pressure

Dewi's history also includes a documented test. In early 1998, during the Asian financial crisis, the Jakarta Post reported that Indonesian publications were cutting pages, raising prices and reducing costs as advertising fell and newsprint prices rose. Dewi, described there as a women's monthly and a sister publication of Femina, raised its price and reduced its pages, and Mirta Kartohadiprodjo explained that most products advertised in Dewi were branded goods, many of which had closed outlets or reduced promotional budgets. She told the paper that Dewi had previously had up to 300 pages and that further cuts were possible if the situation did not improve, and she put Dewi's circulation at about 50,000 copies at that time. That figure is a historical statement from 1998, not a present-day circulation claim. The episode nevertheless explains a structural feature of a luxury magazine: its fortunes are tied closely to the luxury and branded-goods market it serves. When those advertisers thrive, a premium title can be thick with advertising and editorial; when they retreat, the same positioning becomes a vulnerability. Dewi's continuation long after that crisis, into later print editions and a continuing digital and fashion-week presence, is part of its significance as a durable Indonesian title.

Digital presence and continuing role

Dewi's recorded website in this directory profile is dewi.co.id, while the Indonesian Wikipedia lists dewimagazine.com as its website, and it is on dewimagazine.com that the magazine's own about reference, news stories, memorial writing and runway reporting appear. On that site Dewi continues to publish fashion news and Jakarta Fashion Week coverage, including its 2023 account of Dewi Fashion Knights and its reporting of a Dewi presentation at Jakarta Fashion Week 2026 under the theme Female Forward, featuring collections by women designers including Nagita Slavina, Mel Ahyar, and Ingrid Husodo with Christin Wu. Coverage of Jakarta Fashion Week 2026 more broadly also listed DEWI's Luxe Market and the iconic DEWI Fashion Knights among the initiatives through which the week advances the Indonesian fashion industry. Taken together, the record shows a magazine that has moved from a print monthly founded to fill a 1991 gap into a multi-channel fashion authority, while keeping the same core identity. Dewi remains, on the verified evidence, Jakarta's Indonesian-language, Femina-family statement of premium fashion: a magazine for women who want Indonesian designers, global trends, beauty, food and cosmopolitan living treated not as decoration, but as a serious cultural and creative field.