At a glance

• US$8 billion  Indonesia's footwear exports in 2025
• 600 million+ pairs of shoes produced by Indonesia in 2025
• 1.3 million workers employed by the national footwear industry
• 794 brands exhibited at MICAM Milano, split almost evenly between Italian and international names

A room full of shoemakers, diplomats, and one very spontaneous designer sat down in Jakarta this year to answer a strange question: what happens when Italy's oldest shoe town meets Indonesia's biggest one?

That question drove the Indonesia-Italy footwear collaboration now taking shape between Garut, West Java, and Italy's leather and footwear industry. It's not a trade show gimmick. It's a working plan involving an ambassador, a national designers' association, and one of the world's biggest shoe fairs, MICAM Milano.

Who, what, where, when, how much: The push was announced at "Indonesia Forum: Sharing the Future of Fashion," held during Indonesia Fashion Week 2026 in Jakarta and organized by the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) with the Indonesian Fashion Designers and Entrepreneurs Association (APPMI). A related MICAM Milano session, "Footwear in Dialogue," followed in Jakarta on July 29, 2026. The goal: pair Italy's manufacturing know-how with Garut's leather craft, backed by the Indonesia-EU Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA), which is expected to widen market access for Indonesian footwear exports.

Why Is Garut Central to the Indonesia-Italy Footwear Collaboration?

Roberto Colaminè, Italy's Ambassador to Indonesia, didn't come to Jakarta just to walk a runway. His delegation had already spent days in Garut, a leather hub that's supplied Indonesia's shoe industry for decades, studying how Italian production standards could transfer there.

Poppy Darsono, founder of Indonesia Fashion Week and a senior figure in Indonesia's design world, pushed the idea further. Speaking without prepared notes, she floated a concrete plan: route financing from LPDB, under the Ministry of Cooperatives, to Garut's leather-artisan cooperatives, and expand scholarships that already send Indonesian students to study shoemaking in Milan.

"It's never just the last thing you put on. It's the first thing people remember."  SHOES FIRST, MICAM Milano's 2026 campaign

Her vision: Garut as a handmade-shoe production center built jointly by Indonesian and Italian hands.

What's Actually Holding the Industry Back?
Henny Setiadi, who chairs the West Java chapter of Indonesia's footwear association APRISINDO, laid out the numbers first. The industry is strong  nearly US$8 billion in exports, over 600 million pairs produced, more than Rp24 trillion in investment, 1.3 million jobs. But geopolitical tension has pushed raw material costs up by 40 percent, domestic buying power has softened, and illegal imports keep undercutting local producers.

Her answer isn't looser quality standards. It's leaner regulation, paired with three priorities: craftsmanship (Indonesia's real edge, she argues, isn't cheap labor  it's skilled hands), digitalization (starting small, with inventory systems and QR-code tracking rather than robots), and global partnership, where Italy brings machine technology and design while Indonesia brings manufacturing scale and a massive base of small and mid-sized producers.

There's a sensory detail worth sitting with: walk through Garut's tanneries and the smell of curing leather and the rhythmic slap of hand-cutting tools hasn't changed much in generations  it's that unglamorous, hands-on process Italy now wants to modernize, not replace.

The surprising twist? Italy itself is pursuing UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status for its footwear craft  a first for any country, in any nation, for shoes specifically. If it succeeds, the same recognition logic could one day apply to Garut's own artisans.

MICAM Milano's next edition runs September 13–15, 2026, in Milan  one more checkpoint for whether this partnership becomes more than a forum panel.