Initial Visual Research

In this post, I will be explaining further on what inspire my ideas from the brief given, supported with research and illustration of how I approach the inspiration into several design sketches idea. The traditional Javanese shadow puppet Wayang, has been my major inspiration for this term project. When I got the brief that was assign for me, I immediately thought about incorporating the unique motif of wayang's clothing into my design. 

I believe wayang would be the perfect traditional art to represent Indonesia's rich heritage, also considering that wayang kulit has been performed from the ancient hindu-buddha dynasty until today. Each part of the wayang performance has a strong symbol and philosophical meaning. Not only as a form of entertainment, wayang performance also teach noble traits, mutual love and respect and sometimes intersperse with social criticism and comedy. Through centuries, wayang has been keeping its authentic and traditional elements with only a few changes throughout the era, and its unique characteristic especially the wayang's costume that present ancient Javanese royal attire, is what I want to incorporate for this term art portfolio project. 

If I'm going to fully take wayang's attire as my reference, the traditional and outdated-look of wayang will not be relevant for today's trend, therefore I will analyze what elements can be taken and improvised it with the current trend.

Wayang Kulit Sunda

When researching deeper about wayang character's costume, I came across a book that present detailed illustration of various types of design and style of all the wayang character's costume from head to toe. The book titled "Printjening Gambar Ringgit Purwa" by Sulardi, illustrate the different attire between royal characters, religious leader and peasant. Unfortunately, The book only present illustration of all the types of attire of every characters, but there was no detailed explanation of the philosophy behind the costume.

But based on my observation, the biggest difference of the royal character with the others, is they wear the most gold accessories with extremely intricate and detailed motif on their clothing (see fig. 1). They also have exaggerated accessories like back shield, chest shield and sword. On the other hand, the religious leader or usually known as 'pandita' wear modest clothing of long-sleeve top with simple pattern on it (see fig. 2). Whereas the peasant characters appeared topless with a simple necklace and plain 'kamben' (traditional Indonesian garment, specifically a cloth worn to cover the lower part of the body, which is often tied around the waist and usually knee-length) (see fig.3).  These are going to be my reference for my collection design. 

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig.3

Looking at the women wayang character which is illustrated in the picture below, I notice that most character's attire are primarily corset with sweetheart neckline as the base, leaving the rest of their chest bare. These corset are embellished with gold baroque motif. On other character,  I also notice there's drapery that wrap around the neck more like a shawl, appeared in a lot of women wayang characters. And ruffle is also an important elements of wayang costume as it always appears in both women and men costume. Whereas the bottom half is mostly midi-length skirt with tiered ruffle on top and long wedding-like train on the bottom. 

Now, using the sweetheart neckline corset as the base, I created several bodice design with different style which is also take the inspiration from the women wayang character's costume that has been discuss previously. Primarly, I take the shawl drapery and baroque motif as my main reference to make the design. I also tried to combine the corset with detachable cropped long-sleeves, which I think added a modern twist to the traditional look of wayang costumes. For the skirt, I play around with asymmetrical drapery that falls at ankle-length. Another option is pairing mini skirt with exaggerated hip flare drapery like the third skirt picture below and combining inflated silhouette into mini skirt with asymmetrical drapery on both side of the hip as pictured in the second skirt below. 

Moving on to the men costume on the picture below, wayang male characters are mostly topless except for the religious leader who typically are dressed with long-sleeve modest top. To be more relevant today, I don't think I will make the men costume design to be topless, instead I will include the chest accessories on top of a long sleeve shirt. 

Overall, the male and female wayang characters share quite a similar costume, like I notice on the male character that also has drapery around the neck, something like a shawl. Although shawl are typically worn by women, but it's an interesting challenge for me to incorporate that into the men costume while keeping the masculinity of the design. 

Another accessories that the character wear are arm cuff, and headpiece or crown with curve loop almost like a spiral shape. As for the bottom, male wayang characters also wear similar skirt or kemben like the female character, but other characters also wear a type of drapped short with a short drapery train on the back (refer to the image on the left third picture below). Meanwhile, the 'guru' (religious leader) wear skirt or kemben over an ankle-length pants.

                           

Reference:

Sulardi, R.M. Printjening Gambar Ringgit Purwa. Surakarta, Balai Pustaka, 1953, pp. 20–38, luk.staff.ugm.ac.id/wayang/pdf/1953RMSulardi-GambarPrintjeningRinggitPurwa2.pdf. Accessed 9 Apr. 2025.

Image reference:

Fig.1, fig.2 & fig.3:

---. “Wayang Costume,” Universitas Gajah Mada, 1953, luk.staff.ugm.ac.id/wayang/pdf/1953RMSulardi-GambarPrintjeningRinggitPurwa2.pdf. Accessed 9 Apr. 2025.

Bibliography

Indonesia Kaya. “Wayang Kulit: Dari Indonesia Untuk Dunia.” Indonesia Kaya, 2024, indonesiakaya.com/pustaka-indonesia/wayang-kulit-kekayaan-seni-nusantara-yang-bernilai-adiluhung/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2025.

hantoro. “Sejarah Wayang Kulit | PRIHANTORO.” Ugm.ac.id, Universitas Gajah Mada, 11 Apr. 2018, prihantoro.staff.ugm.ac.id/2018/04/11/sejarah-wayang-kulit/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2025.