Garut home industries boast fine silk products<\/p>\n
By Dewi Anggraeni<\/p>\n
GARUT, West Java (JP): What is beauty? In everyday speak,
\nbeauty is something which brings pleasure. It is such an
\nephemeral, even abstract concept, yet for centuries artists and
\nartisans have been able to transfer beauty from the realm of
\nidea into reality.<\/p>\n
Many go further. They make it real and personal. And it sells.
\nMake beauty attachable to our persons, as attire, as adornments,
\nthen you are in business.<\/p>\n
In Indonesia we are increasingly bombarded by beautiful
\nclothing items that are produced globally. They may be
\nmanufactured in this country, in China, Thailand, Vietnam or
\nanywhere in the region. One thing is for sure, the clothes we are
\nwearing have very little local identity. Imagine, at this moment,
\nwe in Indonesia may be wearing the identical items of clothing as
\nmillions of men and women in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, even
\nfar-flung places on different continents; such is the global
\nnature of the fashion industry.<\/p>\n
When wearing global-quality items has lost its novelty, try
\nshrinking your world back to where the boundaries are still
\ndiscernible. Explore local home industries, where beauty has not
\nevaporated into the atmosphere, but is still thick and, in many
\ncases, tangible.<\/p>\n
Such a world can be found in Garut, around 63 kilometers
\nsoutheast of West Java's provincial capital of Bandung. While a
\nfair distance, physically and temporally, from the mythical
\ngoddess of silk, Lady Hsi-Ling Shih, wife of the legendary Yellow
\nEmperor, who ruled China in 3000 B.C., Garut nonetheless boasts
\nits own fine silk, sold to far-flung places in Indonesia<\/p>\n
A regional city, Garut has a healthy home industry of silk-
\nmaking and its own unique batik designs and motifs, known as
\nGarutan.<\/p>\n
Looking at the manufacturing sites one wonders how they manage
\nto keep up with production demand. The two factories in town are
\nowned by the Aman Sahuri family. Each consists of a shop front
\nand a largish workshop at the back. While the shop is airy and
\ntastefully decorated, the workshop is basically functional, and
\neach square meter is efficiently used.<\/p>\n
At first glance, it is hard to imagine how such a labor-
\nintensive manufacturing business as silk-making can be
\naccommodated in such a relatively small space. However, after a
\nchat with Herri, the manager of one of the factories, it became
\nclear that the term "home industry" in this case is not a name
\nonly, because a fair slice of the work is indeed done in ordinary
\nhomes.<\/p>\n
Thus the silk industry of this town has long practiced, and
\nbenefited from, what is now de rigueur among companies in big
\ncities: outsourcing. It provides hundreds of families part-time
\nand full-time work cultivating silkworms. Since demand for the
\nproduct fluctuates, from a business viewpoint, outsourcing seems
\na sensible option.<\/p>\n
Herri painted a picture of the labor-intensiveness of silk-
\nmaking when he explained that to produce one 38-denier silk
\nthread, 14 cocoons were needed. Considering that tens of
\nthousands of threads are required to make a cloth, it is no
\nwonder that the whole population of Garut feels proprietorial
\ntoward the product.<\/p>\n
The full cocoons are delivered to the factories, where the
\nsilk is extracted, cleaned, prepared, spun and woven, all where
\nthe quality can be controlled. The spinners are mainly women,
\nmaybe because they are more naturally suited to the work -- the
\nspinning wheels, made of wood planks and sticks nailed together,
\non one side, and the old bicycle wheels on the other can only
\nwork properly when the hands that feed them are nimble.<\/p>\n
Women are still required to do the length-wise weave, while
\nthe width-wise fill can be done by men. Both use nonmechanical
\nweaving equipment.<\/p>\n
Back in the shop, silk materials of various colors are
\navailable for sale between Rp 60,000 and Rp 70,000 a meter.<\/p>\n
The town's silk industry also supplies the local batik
\nindustry with its fine products.<\/p>\n
Understandably, silk batik is more expensive than the
\ntraditional cotton batik. The silk batik has a unique soft and
\nflowing quality which falls elegantly and sensuously around the
\nwearer's body.<\/p>\n
The designs and motifs of the batik produced in Garut, be it
\nsilk or cotton, are distinctly traditional. The Garutan motifs
\nstand out among those from other areas because they are mostly
\nsparse, never crowded.<\/p>\n
The three colors used are those of dyes extracted from natural
\nmaterials: brick red, indigo and cream. These colors might be
\nused individually or in combination. The base motifs are usually
\nrepeated geometrics, in diagonal lines. Then on top of these,
\nbutterflies, fans or flowers may be added. The overall impression
\nis of softness and understatedness.<\/p>\n
According to Muharam, better known as Bu Ubah, the owner of
\none of these home factories, a hand-painted piece of cloth may
\ntake up to two months to finish, depending on the intricacies of
\nthe motifs and the number of colors. The printed ones are
\nunderstandably faster to produce. The prices reflect the amount
\nof labor involved. Hand-painted batik usually costs around Rp
\n400,000, while a printed one about Rp 40,000.<\/p>\n
The batik industry in this town mostly takes place in home-
\nsized factories. A typical home factory has the front taken up by
\nthe shop or showroom, with the backyard functioning as a
\nworkshop.<\/p>\n
In Bu Ubah's workshop, there are generally three or four women
\nworking with cantings, a type of implement used on hand-painted
\nbatik. Two or three men work on the dyes, and everything is done
\nmanually.<\/p>\n
In the shop, the finished products are displayed tastefully.
\nIt is not quite a riot of colors, yet it grabs your attention and
\nmakes you reluctant to leave. You are surrounded by things of
\nbeauty, and what is more, beauty you can buy and wear,
\ntransferring that beauty onto your person.<\/p>\n
Garut can be reached easily from Bandung, either by public bus
\nor hired car. From Jakarta you have even more options. If you do
\nnot like flying, traveling by train or car is pleasantly scenic,
\nif you can avoid the traffic.<\/p>",
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