Contemporary Takes on Batik at Fashion Nation
Batik has gone through a lot of transformations over the centuries, starting out as simple but beautiful geometric designs that were first seen on the statues and etchings on Hindu and Buddhist temples in central and eastern Java in the ninth and 10th centuries BCE.
During the Majapahit Empire, from the late 1200s through to the early 1500s, batik became the outfit of royalty, as only those who were rich and powerful could afford these laboriously handwoven and hand-drawn textiles.
With the arrival of the Dutch, batik again evolved and took on the influences of the Europeans, initially, and later the Japanese, who briefly usurped the Dutch as the colonial masters of the archipelago. During the Dutch reign, batik designs featured figures found in European fairy tales and paintings. When the Japanese held sway, batik makers adopted bolder colors, as well as cherry blossom and chrysanthemum motifs, which also feature prominently in traditional Japanese dress.
In the years following Indonesia’s independence, most young people forsook traditional clothes for Western fashion and lifestyles in general. Batik was left on the hanger, brought down only for formal events or state functions.
But things changed drastically when Unesco acknowledged batik as part of Indonesia’s intangible cultural heritage in 2009. Suddenly everyone pretended to be proud of batik, and since then the country’s catwalks have never been without an article or several dozen of batik — everything from shirts and dresses, to shoes, slippers, pajamas, bags, even jewelry.
And we haven’t seen the end of it. Batik continues to evolve and rejuvenate itself to become part of today’s lifestyle.
Most recently, batik took center stage at the event “Fashion Nation the Ninth Edition” at the Senayan City mall in South Jakarta.
“Batik is gaining more and more popularity among young people today,” says Senayan City chief executive Veri Y. Setiady.
“And I’m sure that fashion designers, with their creative talents, will be able to present fresh batik collections for the young people.”
On the opening day of the event, notable Indonesian and Thai designers showcased their fresh interpretations of batiks, unveiling the limitless possibilities for the traditional art to evolve and adjust to the modern world of fashion.
Ek Thongprasert
Renowned Thai designer Ek Thongprasert became captivated with batik when he came to Jakarta for the opening of the Central Department Store at the Grand Indonesia mall last November.
“I saw that batik has become an inseparable part of the people’s lifestyle here,” he says. “For me, it’s unique, because, back in my home country, traditional Thai fabric is not something that people wear every day; it’s just for special events, like weddings or gala dinners.”
Ek started out designing jewelry in 2008. As his business grew, he branched out into men’s and women’s ready-to-wear clothes. Today, his collections are available at high-end boutiques and department stores around the world.
“I first saw Ek’s collection when I was in Paris a long time ago,” Veri says. “It was at the department store Le Bon Marche, and I said to myself that one day Ek should come to our Fashion Nation.”
When Veri finally got around to inviting Ek to present his collection at the event, he immediately said yes.
“But I don’t want to show my [existing] collection,” he says. “I want to make something new that represents my new discovery [of batik].”
Ek’s special collection, showcased on the opening day of Fashion Nation, was themed “Stranger’s Batik.”
“It represents [the meaning of] batik for myself,” he says. “I’m not Indonesian and not born with the batik culture.”
But despite being a greenhorn to the age-old art of batik design, Ek showed tremendous audacity to reinterpret batik his own way — and in the process wowed the audience at the show.
He started out with the elegant and classic motif of parang, a tessellated dagger-like pattern, and applied it variously to leather, PVC and silk through a series of modern techniques, including screen printing, laser cutting and leather weaving.
“The collection is mind-blowing,” says Sjamsidar Isa, the president of the Indonesian Fashion Designers Council, or IPMI. “It’s something that has never been done before. And the Thai designer did it well.”
Ek admits he still doesn’t really understand the philosophy behind the parang motif, but says he respects that a lot of cultural importance is attached to it.
“The pattern itself is very beautiful,” he says. “Maybe, it describes the landscape or the way of life of people back then. And I want to perpetuate [the motif] and bring it into the modern world [of fashion].”
In his show, Ek presented 15 men’s and women’s ready-to-wear looks, all featuring the Parang motif.
The women’s evening wear collection consisted of work wear and cocktail gowns, while the men’s looks were more casual and consisted of shirts, sweaters, shorts and kimonos with elaborate laser-cut parang patterns on leather and PVC.
This is actually not Ek’s first time experimenting with culturally important motifs from a different traditional form of dress. Last year, he rolled out his own interpretation of the vintage patterns of early 20th-century Rajasthan designs in his own silver jewelry collection.
“I’m always fascinated by Asian cultures,” Ek says. “And I think it’s good to show the world that people from Asia have something that’s unique and different from the Western designers.”
Mel Ahyar
Indonesian designer Mel Ahyar has become a household name in Jakarta’s fashion scene for the past few years, and her shows are always packed to the rafters, with her collections garnering rave reviews on social media and mass media.
And on the opening day of Fashion Nation, the Palembang-born designer pulled off another quality show with her 2015 collection themed “Chintz.”
Mel says the outfits were inspired by the batik designs that were en vogue during the final century of Dutch rule in Indonesia, from about 1840 to 1940.
“I’ve always wanted to feature batik in my collection,” she says, “but I wanted to play around with them, without risking the wrath of the Keratons” — the Javanese royal families who are widely considered the patrons of the various batik motifs.
So Mel designed the collection using motifs taken from batik Belanda, or batik with a Dutch influence.
“The motifs were usually floral or taken from children’s stories like ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ ” she says. “That way, I have more freedom to play around with them.”
Playfulness has always been one of the signatures of Mel’s fashion collections.
For “Chintz,” she collaborated with a leading Indonesian illustrator, Ammy Tawaqal, who redesigned the batik Belanda motifs — ranging from animals and soldiers to tanks and ondel-ondel puppets — into colorful and comical figures.
Mel then printed these figures onto silk-neoprene, cut them out one by one, then embroidered them onto the clothes in her collection, which consist of baby-doll tops, kebaya-inspired jackets, and empire-style evening gowns.
It took Mel a painstaking two and a half months to put the collection together by hand.
“The process was very complicated, but I think it’s worth it,” she says.
And how. Even before her show at Fashion Nation had concluded, the audience had already erupted into rapturous applause.
“Mel has really outdone herself this time,” says veteran fashion industry watcher and writer Sotyati. “Her collection wowed the audience from the start. And it finished beautifully, too.”
An elegant long gown in baby pink, embellished with an ornate flowers-and-peacocks embroidery, closed out the show.
“Everything is so cute,” says Juliana Hamid, a homemaker from South Jakarta, who was at the show at Senayan City. “Mel has given batik a new face. And I really love it.”
Mel’s talent was apparent from the start of her career.
In the first year of her study at the ESMOD fashion college in Jakarta in 2001, she won the title of “Best Pattern Maker” at the school’s annual competition.
In 2003, she won two special jury awards for her collection presented at the French Embassy in Jakarta and for graduation day at ESMOD.
Between 2005 and 2006, Mel continued her studies at ESMOD in Paris. And in her final year, she received both the “Best Nouvelle Couture” title from ESMOD Paris and the “Coup de Coeur” award from celebrated French fashion designer Emanuel Ungaro.
When she returned to Jakarta in 2007, Mel established her eponymous first line, Mel Ahyar Couture, and her ready-to-wear label, Happa.
The “Chintz” collection will soon be available at Mel’s workshop in Cipete, South Jakarta.
“I also plan to bring this collection to the Expo Milano” — the World Expo — “in May [2015],” she says.
With visionary proponents like Mel and Ek taking up the challenge to reinvent batik for the wider world, there seems no doubt that the traditional textile will continue to evolve and gain a name for its beauty and versatility.
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