Balinese traditional textiles in tune with modern times

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.