Batik
October 28, 2009 | banay | Culture | No Comments
Batik has been both an art and a craft for centuries. In Java, Indonesia, batik is part of an ancient tradition, and some of the finest batik cloth in the world is still made there. Depending on the quality of the art work, dyes, and fabric, the finest batik tulis halus cloth can fetch several thousand dollars, reflecting the fact that it probably took several months to make. The Laweyan and Kauman areas in Surakarta, Indonesia are famous for fine batiks.[citation needed]
Contemporary batik, while owing much to the past, is markedly different from the more traditional and formal styles. For example, the artist may use etching, discharge dyeing, stencils, different tools for waxing and dyeing, wax recipes with different resist values and work with silk, cotton, wool, leather, paper or even wood and ceramics.
Batik has found worldwide popularity. Nelson Mandela wore a batik shirt on formal occasions, but the South Africans call it a Madiba shirt. The Malaysian singer Siti Nurhaliza wore an Indonesian kebaya and batik on her wedding day. The late mother of United States president Barrack Obama, Ann Dunham was an avid collector of Batik. In 2009, an exhibition of Dunham’s textile batik art collection (A Lady Found a Culture in its Cloth: Barack Obama’s Mother and Indonesian Batiks) toured six museums in the United States, finishing the tour at the Textile Museum.[4]
In Indonesia, batik popularity has its up and downs. Historically it was worn as part of a kebaya dress, which was widely used everyday. It waned during the 1960s till 1990s, because more and more women wore western clothes instead. Although its use where heavily incorporated in formal occasions especially in the Javanese royal occasions, the batik continued to wane in everyday lives. It reached a new revival in the 2000s with the effort of the Indonesian fashion designers, to revive batik and the kebaya altogether, they incorporate new colors, fabrics and patterns. Batik has become part of a fashion for young people in Indonesia, for casual wear it is normally worn as a shirt,dress or scarf. For a formal occasion, women normally wears it as part of a kebaya.
Source : Wikipedia.org
