Balinese traditional textiles in tune with modern times

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): As the pencil thin model draped in a body hugging kebaya walked in, the audience let out a collective cry. Some thought that the outfit -- a combination of a lemon green songket skirt topped with a laced kebaya, below which the model wore nothing else except a little white bra embroidered in pink flowers -- was sexy. Some others felt blinded by the exposure of so much flesh.

Unfazed by the criticism, Didi said that he did not force anyone to wear anything. "I am just showing you what my imagination has been up to lately," said the fashion designer who specializes in evening wear and does not like the thought of women feeling alien within their own surroundings, especially because of the way they dress.

He likes to drape women in dresses that will make them feel comfortable, especially in the evening for all parts of the world whether it is the east or west.

Besides, few outfits are worn straight out of a fashion show.

"Designers always adjust them eventually to the demand of an individual client," Didi likes to remind.

All his outfits are inspired by traditional clothing and designs but have been modified for the modern day miss. He finds the kebaya a very sexy apparel.

This season some of his kebaya have done away with the traditional front opening and are criss-crossed at the back in corset style. Some are off shoulder.

His sarong is no longer just a piece of cloth sewn into a tube but is shaped into sensual curves to be worn for a formal musical soiree without feeling like a country bumpkin. The shimmering songket skirts remain a riot of color but the beauty of the textile is enhanced by the way that they have been stitched.

Didi uses only the most expensive and also the most sacred of all material as a waist band.

He is known to introduce his collection annually around a theme inspired by some aspect of the rich art and culture of this country.

In this event the Jakarta-based designer presents 10 outfits made from the traditional textiles of Bali.

Once he decided upon this theme he chose the Balinese anthropologist I Made Seraya as a guide and toured villages in Bali for months, watching master craftsmen engaged in the art of weaving as it has been done for centuries and also studied the sacred meaning of the motifs and colors woven into fabrics.

He is especially fascinated with the double ikat geringsing cloths which are made only after performing special purifying rituals. It is the most famous, and also the most expensive of all textiles produced only in the village of Tenganan, Bali.

This fabric is considered sacred throughout the island. Some say that human blood is used to deepen the red color that goes into weaving the fish scale patterns and kawung, the semicircular designs which are supposed to keep illnesses at bay.

Traditionally the sick are wrapped in this cloth and the dead are covered with it. The double ikat is also spread out on pillows for tooth filing rituals.

Ikat is from the Malay word to tie a knot and is an ancient technique introduced by Indian Gujarati traders who specialized in patola designs where a motif is dyed into the threads of a cloth before it is woven.

Like the patola the background color is almost always a deep red and once the Balinese were introduced to the frightfully difficult art of the double ikat, they added new patterns of their own inspired by wayang puppets and other mythological figures from local legends.

For textiles in Bali do not only serve as protection against the cold and sun but are also powerful symbols indicating the status and well being of the wearer. The women of royal families always competed with each other to create the most beautiful of fabrics using sumptuous materials like silk imported from China and gold and silver thread from India.

The Balinese believe that textiles are bestowed with magical powers capable of protecting the wearer against malevolent influences. Cloth also serves as an intermediary with the supernatural world in rituals like cremations when hundreds of meters are set ablaze on a funeral pyre as it accompanies the soul of the dead to the other world.

The age-old tradition has been to grow cotton in villages where it was not possible to plant rice. While men worked on the fields, weaving became the domain of women who are still said to be the guardian of all the secrets that go into making cloth.

And one of the most important duties of a mother is to hand down to her daughters knowledge of the warp and the weft given to the women of Tenganan by god Indra himself.

Although the history of textiles in Bali is a very ancient one going as far back in time as the eighth century none of it ever existed or flowered by itself.

Rather like a bouquet textiles here are a combination of influences from around the world.

From the Dong-Son culture of the northern region of Vietnam come the knife, the hook, soul ship, tree of life, animals and human forms and the sun burst patterns along with the warped loom itself.

By the second century AD Indian traders mingled with people here. The fifth century saw a Hindu kingdom established in Java and in the seventh century the kingdom of Srivijaya in south Sumatra was a major center of Mahayana Buddhism.

It was Indian and Arab traders who brought Islam in the 15th century and later Dutch merchants came with Christianity.

The Chinese immigrants too did not come empty-handed. The patterns on the porcelain and embroidery brought by them inspired the phoenix bird, the swastika emblem, the lion and the cloud designs to be used here on cloth.

It is said that there are over 3,000 batik designs that include Indian, Chinese and Buddhist patterns including indigenous motifs of local fruits and flowers.

A Dutch engraving in 1593 shows that people here were quite naked above the waist. It is from 1653 onward that bodies were covered with some clothing and the rulers of Makassar are known to have worn European coats over bare skin, with naked arms and bellies.

A common tendency was to sport a jacket of European design over an expensive cloth used as a traditional sarong.

Human beings therefore have been influencing each other through the ages and it is no surprise that they continue to do so even today.

Now, if the sole purpose of insisting that just one kind of kebaya be worn here so that men are not distracted by women then let the weak willed men do something about themselves for a change. Let them control their passions so they are not swayed by such temptations.