The word “Batik” derive from Javanese and means “writing with wax”. It is a method using bees wax, natural dyes and old antique hand carved patterns. The most iconic batiks and our PURE SOUL collection come from Java, Indonesia and UNESCO has actually named Indonesian Batik as a masterpiece of the “oral and intangible heritage of humanity”.
Classical Batik Design from Central Java can be grouped in four categories:
The first is the garish miring of diagonally running designs. The second is nitik consisting of small dots or scallops as filler in large designs and also imitates the visual effect of woven cloth. The third is ceplok which has grid-formed designs inspired by cardinal directions and cross sections of fruit. The fourth is the semen category of styled flora and fauna motifs.
Batik designs from the north of Java tend to be more organic with mammal, sea creatures, birds, insects and floral themes.
Batik from the Tuban Region, is the most unique and has a long history of acculturation, with diverse patterns influenced by a variety of cultures, and is the most developed in terms of pattern, technique, and the quality of workmanship. It is also our Batik of choice and called Batik Tenun Gedog Tuban, since it is applied onto the scarce handspan, handwoven Tuban Tenun Gedog:
-The technique starts with melting bees wax in a small metal pot(wajan) over an open flame. The design, normally dots or lines, are then drawn on the hand-spun hand woven cotton fabric with charcoal or graphite. The designs are traced from stencils or patterns called pola. The fabric is then tacked onto a wooden frame (gawangan) and the wax is applied over the areas of the design that the artisan wishes to remain original, normally a white or cream colour. A spouted tool called a “canting” is used by the woman to apply the wax, by hand over the drawn design, a time consuming process. Or a copper stamp called a “cap”, which is a configuration of needles and sheet metal strips, is used by the men to hand print the wax on the fabric, a less time consuming process. Or sometimes both the canting and cap are used to apply the wax to create a specific design.The applied wax resists dyes and therefore allows the artisan to colour selectively by soaking the cloth in one colour, removing the wax with boiling water, letting it dry and repeating, if multiple colours or darker colours are desired. One design normally gets coloured multiple times and some even more than 33 times to create the desired motifs, patterns and colour hues. Batik Tenun Gedog Tuban is done in a mirror reflection on both sides of the fabric (tullis), which makes it more unique and more time consuming.
Batik Tenun Gedog Tuban colours are made from natural organic vegetable ingredients such as violets or blues are made from the leaves of the indigo plant (indogofera tinctoria). The leaves are mixed with molasses, sugar and lime and left to stand overnight. Brown colours are made from the bark of soga wood (peltophorum pterocarpum). Dark Red is called mengkuda and made from the leaves of the Morinda Citrifolia. Sap from the Tinggi tree is added to act as a fixing agent and after the dyeing process, a fixing-bath containing lime, sugar, and traditionally also alum and flower buds of Sophora japonica L., is necessary to make the colours more fast and bright.
From harvesting Kapok Lawa until Batik Tenun Gedog Tuban takes 3 months to complete… So while you might get a cheap sarong made in a fast factory on a beach holiday in Bali or Thailand, these are rare & although more expensive, a life investment, each with its own tale to tell for future generations.
PURE SOUL Batik Collection is made of 100 % Natural Handpicked Handwoven Cotton( Tuban Tenun Gedog) from East Java, Indonesia:
Tuban Tenun Gedog is made from Kapok Lawa (Brown Cotton), a fluffy staple fibre that grows in a boll, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the Kapok Lawa Trees, native specific to Tuban Region, East Java. Kapok Lawa is rare, harder to grow and therefor more expensive than Kapok Putih (White Cotton). It is 100% hand picked, hand-spun, handwoven & unique due to its natural two colour (brown & white) cotton thread cloth. This unique handwoven two coloured cotton cloth is only still found in rural areas of Tuban, East Java.
Only the best cotton fibre balls, from Kapok Lawa (brown) are handpicked by the old female villagers whom then home hand-spun the fibre into thread onto primitive handmade spools. The cotton threads (loom) are then coated with rice starch to make it firm and easy to weave. The weaving (tenun) is done by hand on teak primitive tools (kemplongan), to produce the hand woven cotton cloth called “Tenun Gedog”. The name came from the sound of the loom when they do the weaving process “dog…dog…dog..
The handwoven cotton cloth is now either, sold as natural unique two colour thread Tuban Tenun Gedog, or ancient old design methods, such as Ikat, Batik, Tie-Dye, Palangi or Tritik is applied to create unique works of art, each with their own tale to tell. The whole process from harvesting to Tuban Tenun Gedog takes several months to complete.