Batik Printing Sarong Enlivens the Millennial Sarong Style

BULETIN TEKSTIL.COM/ Jakarta – On March 3, we are again commemorating Sarong Day, which in 2019 the government announced that Indonesia has clothing in the form of sarong that need to be recognized as national clothing. It has been written in the media that sarongs have not been as good as batik so far, though both have been our cultural wealth since a long time ago.

This time I am raising a topic regarding batik sarong, a sarong fabric that have batik motifs, not just palekat motifs from colourful woven threads. There might be a question on why palekat sarongs are not the top choice for sarong motifs that millennials are interested in. For the colonialists, the palekat sarong might be considered too out of the box, so they were the most dominant consumers for the palekat motif. Due to the motifs that were considered too luxurious and flashy, sarongs with traditional woven motifs were chosen for big events.

Batik sarongs are a development of coastal batik emerged from coastal batik areas. Coastal batik has a distinctive pattern that I can describe as illustrated below.

The right part of the head, which is the widest and most conspicuous, is used as a Tumpal

This cloth is also called a sarong when the batik cloth is worn by the woman in the picture above. In women’s sarongs, the two ends of the cloth often do not need to be sewn, the head and board are also placed in front. What distinguishes classic batik cloth from coastal batik is that it needs to be used with pleats, while coastal batik does not.

When developed for men’s use, coastal batik is used with its head on the back, while both of the edge of the fabric are sewn to form a tube. The chart sketch of the batik sarong motif is as follows.

Some of the sketch were taken from my book “Sarung Tenun Indonesia, Warisan Budaya Bangsa”

The emergence of the Batik Sarong

The emergence of the Batik Sarong is closely related to the spread of Islam in the Tegalsari area, Ponorogo. Kyai Kasan Besari (Hasan Basri) or known as Kyai Agung Tegalsari, was the caretaker of an Islamic boarding school which also taught Islam, constitutional science, war science and literature. Kyai Kasan Besari was taken as a son-in-law by the king of the Keraton Solo due to his piety and wisdom (the versions of this story vary widely). The princess of the Kraton Solo was then brought to Tegalsari after becoming his wife, followed by her companions who some of them were royal batik makers who brought their batik skills to Ponorogo. Then, the Tegal Sari Islamic boarding school began to like sarongs, which were originally only palekat patterns, to become batik motifs. Since at that time people outside the palace consumed more coastal motif batik, therefore the batik sarong followed the coastal pattern, where the tumpal sarong was placed on the back and without being given a tumpal on the left side of the head, because this part would be sewn in the shape of a tube (see sarong chart).

Trendy Sarong among Millennials

Among millennials, the use of traditional clothing has been increasingly encouraging. Not only women who are increasingly daring to wear batik cloth and kebaya in public places, both in malls and on campus locations, millennial men are also increasingly confident in wearing sarongs when doing activities in public areas as a form of their love for national culture.

(Red B-Teks/ Adi Kusrianto)

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