Silk tie with a touch of batik<\/p>\n
Bambang Trisno, Contributor, Klaten, Central Java<\/p>\n
Silk tie with handmade batik motifs? Some might guess the ethnic
\ntouch of the tie only comes from the hands of reputable fashion
\ndesigners.<\/p>\n
Wrong. Such a fine accessory may have been part of your
\ncollection for sometime without you even realizing it, and it
\ncomes from Sanggrahan, a small village near Prambanan Temple.<\/p>\n
Through his company, Eddy Adib pioneered producing these silk
\nties with classic batik motifs. For his home industry, the native
\nof Pekalongan, Central Java was assisted by 16 workers in
\nproducing about 150 handmade silk ties each day.<\/p>\n
The man started this business only by chance. In 1980,
\nEddy, who spent three years at Futhuhiah Islamic boarding school
\nin Mranggen, Semarang, met a Balinese businessman. Thinking that
\nEddy was a good batik maker, this businessman took him to Bali.<\/p>\n
Although he did not know how to make batik, Eddy teamed up
\nwith his friend, a real batik maker, to seize the business
\nopportunity that the Balinese businessman offered.<\/p>\n
After being in the batik business for a year, he met an
\nAmerican in 1982, who offered him some capital to set up a batik
\nbusiness in Pekalongan. That very year, he moved to his birth
\nplace to start this business. But in 1985, due to marketing
\nconsiderations, he moved his business to Bali.<\/p>\n
In 1989 he was tempted to try his luck in the then lucrative
\nproperty business but failed and lost virtually everything he had
\nearned from his batik business.<\/p>\n
Luckily he met a Korean businessman, Kim Sung In, who offered
\nto cooperate with him to make ties of an international standard.
\nKim also taught him the technique to make these ties. But before
\ntheir joint venture materialized, Kim had to return to his
\ncountry because of family affairs.<\/p>\n
With the knowledge he learned from Kim, Eddy began his silk
\ntie making business by giving the ties the touch of batik motifs.<\/p>\n
The man also followed the international quality standard since
\n90 percent of his buyers were foreign tourists. Eighty percent of
\nhis ties were marketed in Bali.<\/p>\n
Now, he also started making silk batik shirts as there was a
\ngood demand for this product.<\/p>\n
A hand-drawn silk tie of his own batik design is offered at Rp
\n40,000 and Rp 140,000 per shirt. In the process, he draws the
\nbatik designs and then leaves the job to batik makers in Cirebon
\n(West Java), Pekalongan and Surakarta, both in Central Java, to
\ncomplete.<\/p>\n
His problem now is the limited supply of handmade batik silk
\nfor shirts. For a demand of 100 pieces of silk batik shirts, he
\nhas to wait for five months for the raw material to be available.
\nOn the other hand, there is a regular stream of orders and even
\noffers to form joint ventures from foreign investors coming from
\nMalaysia, Japan and even New Zealand.<\/p>\n
With the problem, Eddy can meet only domestic demand, serving
\nhis loyal customers. Among his regular clients that he declined
\nto name were a noted choreographer, House of Representative's
\nlegislators, and a leading batik retail shop with outlets in
\nJakarta, Surakarta, Yogyakarta and Bali. He also supplies his
\nproducts to a number of duty-free shops at Ngurah Rai
\nInternational Airport and a famous shopping mall in Denpasar,
\nBali.<\/p>\n
He claimed that some buyers put their own labels on his
\nproducts before exporting them. So don't be surprised if one day
\nyou'll find a silk tie with batik motif abroad with a famous
\nlabel but actually, it's made in Klaten.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/silk-tie-with-a-touch-of-batik-1447893297",
"image": ""
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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