Material & Sustainability

Songket is a traditional balinese woven textile that are known for its luxurious pattern and color. Songket is made by weaving gold and silver thread into the base fabric like cotton or silk. This thread is what added shimmering effect to the songket. Songket has a range of motifs from geometric shapes, floral pattern or balinese symbols. This luxurious fabric is usually worn as a 'kemben' or skirt for a special occasion like attending wedding event or other formal event (see image below). Some songket is made using threads that is pleated with real gold and took months to make. 

These are two of the songket fabric that I was planning to use for my outcome. One has a red, silver and black color palette while the other primarily has brown, red and gold accents. 

Batik is Indonesia most famous textile heritage that is recognized by Unesco as masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of humanity in 2009. Motif and pattern found in traditional batik often presented family, social status and geographic origin. In the past, Batik were made using natural dye consisted primarily of blue, brown, beige and black. Some of the most used motif of traditional batik are 'kawung' or intersecting circles, geometric shape and 'parang' or knife pattern. These prints were inspired by Japanese, Indian, Chinese and Dutch influence, which resulted in the abundance of colors and motifs (UNESCO, nd). 

Today, Batik doesn't appear in dark colors anymore, modern batik frequently use bright and playful color that younger generations like. Batik motif today is not required to follow the strict rules of using motifs according to social statues, but there's much more freedom to express creativity through a range of unique motifs and patterns. In the past, Batik is made exclusively for the royalty and the process can took years from hand-drawing the pattern to be ready to be wear, but as demand are rising, manufacturers started to implement batik mass-stamping technique ad batik printing. The batik fabric that I'm using for my outcome is a printed motif on silk fabric, presented in yellow and orange floral pattern.

                                            

As for the skirt, I'm using a lace curtain fabric that has a shimmering or glittering effects. The reason for choosing curtain as the skirt is because the stiff fabric will help to give voluminous drapery when it's worn. 

While for the top, I made the bolero using a stretchy polyester fabric that has rhombus pattern on it. The fabric is perfect to be made into a top because it has a cold feelings to the skin, and not itchy, it's especially important because I will not adding lining into the sleeve, therefore the fabric needs to be comfortable getting in contact with the skin. 

References:

UNESCO (n.d.). Cultural Selection: ‘Batik for the World’ Exhibition at UNESCO | Silk Roads Programme. [online] en.unesco.org. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/content/cultural-selection-batik-world-exhibition-unesco [Accessed 18 May 2025].