http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/01/24/batik-around-world.html
Triwik Kurniasari
01/24/2010
The art of batik has come a long way from being a mere handicraft.
Today, it is at the forefront of fusion in the fashions of the world.
Rico Rinaldi Tono was surprised when he was named as the winner for
the fashion category in the Piala Seri Endon Batik designing
competition in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, recently.
The Piala Seri Endon, now in its seventh year, was held in
conjunction with the Kuala Lumpur International Batik (KLIB)
Convention and Exhibition at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
The KLIB is a biennial event under the Malaysia Batik - Crafted For
the World movement, bringing in more than 20 speakers from various
countries (including Singapore, Indonesia, India, Australia, Sri
Lanka, Azerbaijan and Japan), as well as holding a three-day batik exhibition.
The 23-year-old Malaysian designer beat other participants with his
"Republic Flora" collection to bring home a trophy and RM30,000
(US$8,800) in cash.
He opted for floral motifs, drawing inspiration from anti-war efforts
in the United States, where the term "Flower Power" was used
especially against the Vietnam War during the 1960s.
He used satin, chiffon and cotton for his designs, creating floral
jodhpurs with boleros for women's casual wear and long black dresses
with flowers for women's evening wear, while for men he designed
black jodhpurs with floral shirts.
Rico said he was overwhelmed by the victory as all the other
designers had showcased creative and fabulous creations.
He started to learn batik shortly before participating in the
Malaysian Batik Fashion Accessory Design Competition in 2006, where
he also won first prize.
He said competitions such as this were a good opportunity for young
people to showcase their talent for designing batik.
"I hope that I can stick to designing batik because, as a designer,
my job actually promotes *batik*," he said.
Rico is just one among many people around the world who are trying to
preserve batik.
The word "batik" actually means "wax writing" and that is basically
what batik is all about. It is a way of decorating cloth by covering
a part of it with a coat of wax and then dyeing the cloth.
Batik has become part of Indonesian people's life as it is often used
in various traditional rituals, from the seventh-month ritual, when
the mother-to-be is wrapped in seven different layers of batik cloth,
to using batik as a shroud at the delivery of a newborn baby.
People use a canting (a pen-like tool to draw the batik pattern in
wax) and malam (beeswax) to draw batik pattern on white cloth, called
mori. The canting technique later developed into a larger printing
device made of brass or copper.
After drawing and retracing the pattern with melted wax, people will
dye the cloth several times to achieve the desired shades.
The traditional practice of batik making has long been quite natural
as it uses either beeswax or wood sap from certain kinds of plants
for the dye-resistant ink and natural materials for dyes such as indigo.
Not only Indonesia, but other countries across the globe also have
their own unique batik creations. In Malaysia, it is believed that
batik was developed by people living on the east coast of the
country, in Kelantan and Terengganu.
Malaysian batik has free-flowing and colorful styles with the most
popular motifs being leaves and flowers.
In making hand-drawn batik, the prepared and measured-out fabric is
stretched over a metal or wooden frame and the pattern is traced with
a soft pencil, then it is drawn in liquid wax by using a canting.
The next step is painting the parts of the fabric that are not covered in wax.
"We use brushes of different sizes in the painting process. Different
shades are obtained by diluting the color with water. The color has
to dry before fixing," said Anjang Sarina, a staff member at the
Katanga Malaysia (The Malaysian Handicraft Development Corporation)
in Kuala Lumpur.
Finally, the wax is removed with hot water, and the fabric is rinsed
several times in order to remove excess dye and wax residue.
Besides hand-drawn batik, there is also block-printed batik, which is
done by means of a metal block made by welding together strips of
metal. The block is dipped into molten wax and pressed against the
fabric in order to make the pattern.
Batik has also been long known in Sri Lanka as it has been very much
a part of the country's art and craft circle, said Somali
Dharmawardena, artist-cum-fashion designer.
Just like in Indonesia, batik in Sri Lanka has been going through ups
and downs. There were times when batik died as a craft and nobody did
anything about it.
Then in the late 1960s or early 1970s, a man named Vipula
Dharmawardena, who is Somali's father-in-law, revived the industry
and brought a whole new dimension to it.
"He was a poor man in a village and he became a mega-millionaire with
his batik. He reintroduced the trend of batik to Sri Lanka and
revived it to make it one of the strongest commercial industries in
the local market from the late 1960s to the early *80s," Somali said.
But with the flooding of the market and a situation where people
wanted to make quick money, the industry started shrinking again. The
civil war worsened the situation, causing the batik industry to
become dormant.
The 41-year-old woman was inspired to revive the popularity of batik
when she saw some of Vipula's masterpieces.
"I thought it was a beautiful thing so why did people not use it? I'm
an artist, I did not know anything about batik, but when I looked at
it I thought it was lovely. I thought it would be nice if I started
to use a little bit of batik," she said.
But the problem was the design was out-of-date.
"When you look at things like that, you need to have tradition but
you also need to make it more modern. You stick to the same frame but
you modernize it.
"You might be able to use very traditional things, let's say, maybe
in the inner lining or just for the color," she added.
So she started playing around with batik and using it. Somali, for
instance, takes a piece of batik and puts it on traditional cloth saris.
Sri Lankan batik, she explained, is a bit different from the
Indonesian. With the Sri Lankan batik, the motifs are a little
bigger. But the technique of batik making is fairly similar to the
one used in Indonesia.
"We use the canting tool and hot wax. We block the color with hot
wax, submerge it in a dye bath, boil it and then put on the next
color," she said.
"It's more like the Indonesian technique than the Malaysian. The
Malaysian technique uses paint. We don't paint at all."
She felt proud to say that today there were a lot of young people in
her country who were using batik in swimwear, lingerie, evening
clothes and saris.
She added that she would not even bother if someone copied her collections.
"You know why, because while they are copying it, I have to think
other ideas. So I have something different and new," she said, adding
that she did not register her batik.
"You can't register a batik design because it's a work of art. It's
very difficult to register. Anyway, when I design the saris, I only
do one of each kind because I hand-draw it."
As well as Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan also recognizes batik. The batik
pattern can be found in its women's silk scarves, known as kelagai,
which have been part of women's clothing there for centuries, said
Azerbaijani artist, Tatyana Agababayeva.
For a long time, batik in Azerbaijan has been not only a craft but
also a cultural source for making original, creative compositions.
From ancient times, fabric produced using the batik technique was an
object of special love and now leading Azerbaijani couturiers are
introducing batik in their exclusive creations.
Kelagai themselves, Agababayeva explained, were first produced in the
village of Basgal and were created using the stamping method and
natural colors.
"It is interesting that the cocoons were traditionally processed by
women while the hand-printing with hot wax was only entrusted to male
artists," Agababayeva said.
The silk spinning and production of kelagai in Azerbaijan slumped
after the fall of the USSR.
It was the Inkishaf Scientific Center which revived kelagai in the
country. "With financial support from the Japanese Embassy and the
sponsorship provided by directors of local companies, the production
of silk textiles and kelagai in Sheki was restored," she said.
Kelagai is worn by women both old and young. "Young women prefer
bright colors, while older women wear dark colors like black."
"Now, many young people wear other variations of kelagai, using them
if they go to the seaside, for instance," she added.
Meanwhile, among the nations of Southeast Asia, the tradition of
making batik has not extended to the Philippines.
It's mainly because the Philippines has its own traditional textiles,
fashion designer Alfonso Guino-o said.
In the southern island of Mindanao, for instance, people weave
textiles from abaca fiber, made from the abaca plant which is
indigenous to the Philippines, using the ikat technique.
Muslim women wear the malong, an extended version of the sarong worn
in Indonesia and Malaysia, a tubular dress made from two hand-woven
silk pieces enhanced by tapestry weave inserts.
Such finely woven malong, however, have given way to cotton batiks
that have been traded to the Muslims from the neighboring Indonesian
island of Sulawesi.
Even though the country does not produce batik, Alfonso said, many
Filipinos have a great appreciation of batik.
"A lot of Filipinos get batik from Malaysia or Indonesia," he said.
As a designer, he often combines batik with other fabrics, twisting
it into the Filipino style.
He also had the chance to present his batik creations at a fashion
show at the KLIB. He, for instance, combined a white blouse with a
batik sarong, while he paired a white blouse with a shocking red
batik sarong and a matching shawl.
Let's just say batik has come a long, long way from a mere handicraft
of days gone by to having a place on the fashion charts all over the world.
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