Around the World in 80 Dresses

  As to see beautiful sarong-kebaya combinations you will have to travel to Bali. This island so distinctly different from other parts of Indonesia is imbued with Buddhist traditions. I had the chance to attend a royal funeral in Ubud and to witness this important event where a gamelan orchestra played, ladies wore their finest and a sarong seller offered her ware stored in a bundle on her head.   In Malaysia the sarongs are called songkets .  The main techniques are batik (see also post  A New Take on Batik, March 18 ) and ikat . Ikat is the name of a long process of binding the yarn to resist colour and dying it several times to obtain the pattern. Sarongs are now mainly confined to dancing performances and museums.  I bought the batik cloth with the blue flowers from Tiga Serangkai Design in Eastern Malaysia and the black and brown one in Malaysian Borneo from Sarawak Design. In the olden days my red sarong with the golden threads would ha...

Wax and kita explained Alice Ehui Eba are the very fabric of Ivorian society. These brightly coloured  pieces of cotton with their genorous curvy patterns  made a big splash in my small French town and created an atmosphere of  joi de vivre à l'Africaine.  In West Africa they go back to early colonial times and to the Asian technique of batik.   Nowadays the patterns and colours are printed on the fabric, but the name of the wax used for batik sticks. Alice, the stylist from Ivory Coast showed her amazing creativity in a fashion défilée for women, children and even men. Ample pelerines, swinging dresses, bomber jackets and coats, all made from wax. The traditional meaning of every colour and curve was duly explained. Red means rich and blue love, some patterns are hidden love letters. These connotatios may be lost to the Western customer, but the riot of colour is intriguing. Some ladies in the audience already showed off their West African blouse o...

Somehow I was never all too keen about batik. I thought it is just a piece of fabric with blurred colours which is quite complicated to produce given the poor result. Even after I had bought on a whim of a batik summer dress in Penang, I didn't investigate further.                                                                                                                                                                                                             ...