I’m not sure if any of you ever heard about this beautifully made fabric from Indonesia called “Batik”, although I’m quite sure whoever visited Indonesia before, or someone who learn fashion and fabrication might heard a bit about. Well, there are stories about why they called it batik. There are several sayings about it. If you’re interested, you can always lean on google or wikipedia for this!
In Indonesia, there are alot of cities who has their own batik, themed by daily life, flowers, nature, animals, folklore or people. Like, Pesisir Batik which is from Northern part of Java, absorbs influence from Javanese, Arab, Chinese and Dutch culture. But, cities like Yogyakarta and Surakarta are different. Their traditional color, indigo, dark brown, and white, believed to represent 3 majors Hindu Gods, “Brahma, Visnu and Sava”.
From the making technique, they have “Batik Tulis” and “Batik Cap”. Well, I made one during my college days. To make it short, i used “Canting” and wax which was extremely hot, and drew the pattern/design, wait until it dries, then put the color on it ( using brush ), wait til it dries again, and boiled water mix with glue and put the fabric in for few mins, washed and hang it and taa daaa the batik is ready!! For me, Batik shows Indonesian’s woman spirit and passion.
Here is some pics!
Batik Parang Rusak
UNESCO designated Indonesian batik as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on Oct 02 last year. As part of the acknowledgment, UNESCO insisted that Indonesia preserve their heritage. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are also found in other countries such as Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore. Malaysian batik often displays plants and flowers, as Islam forbid pictures of other living beings. Nowadays, Batik is not only a fabric, but they’ve developed it into dresses, top, bottoms, hats, pens, hand phone case, bags, etc.
