Tarum means Indigo; visiting a natural dyes workshop

Near Ubud, Bali, by driving along windey roads through little kampungs (villages) towards the coast, Tarum natural dyes have their workshop. Mr. Iwan, the owner, was kind enough to show me around their lovely (really, it was, and mostly open air) workshop, explain the different dyestuffs and techniques they use and show me samples of work the have done previously.

Mr. Iwan Triadi and Mr. Made Arsana, the owners first started experimenting with natural dyes in 1998, predicting growth of the area in the next 6 years. The prediction has been fulfilled and a steady but "organic" growth of the business has taken place.

Tarum uses leaves instead of roots, bark and wood as the tree can keep on living and regrown the leaves which is a sustainable harvesting method. The dying method is inspired by traditional pre-chemical dyeing. Most of the natural blues, reds, blacks, purples, and browns on traditional Indonesian textiles come from two vegetable dyes: indigo blue, from the shrubs Indigofera tinctoria and suffruticosa, and morinda red, from Morinda trees. Mango is used for yellow and orange. The plants are locally (in their back yard or in Singaraja, north Coast Bali) grown except for the Secang which comes from West Java because it is not sufficiently available in Bali.

Leaves for dyeing grown in the back yard

Harvesting Leaves to be boiled down to the dye stuff

Indigo leaf

Colours

Tarum also have a spinning and weaving facility; a wonderfully airy, spacious, light room. I mentioned to Pak Iwan that this is a much nicer working environment compared to the stuffy garment manufacturing factories I have seen in Indonesia; Pak Iwan however laughed and said one of their companies biggest challenges is in fact to recruit workers as the young people would rather work in mobile phone shops, can you believe it!

Weaving studio

Hand loom

Being dying professionals, Tarum are constantly expanding their repertoire on dying methods and have some in stock which are looking very interesting to Studio Anglindo... 

Connecting People : Ethical Fashion Indonesia

Image courtesy of May Cortazzi

Because it's literally impossible to find any information on the internet on ethical fashion in Indonesia.

Because being here shows me that people living in the same city interested in the same thing need don't know of each others existence.

Because promoting ethical fashion will support ethical businesses and allow them to grow.

Because people are ignorant of the environmental and social impact of the garment industry.

Because THERE IS SO MUCH POTENTIAL.

Oh my, I am getting very emotional about this topic. From meeting new people I am talking to eco fashion about almost every month, it seems to have accelerated to every week ... if people are not already involved, I am getting a response of interest,of curiosity.

Together with May Cortazzi of Regenerate, with whom I have been brooding about these forums and groups since we met a couple of weeks ago, we have finally done it. May is a fantastically motivated and engaged designer and owner of an ethical casual-wear brand based in Nottingham. I met her when she was in Indonesia with other finalists of the UK young entrepreneurs award.

Here they are:

Ethical Fashion Indonesia on NING
Ethical Fashion Forum an International network of ethical designers.
http://ethicalfashionforum.ning.com/group/ethicalfashionindonesia

Ethical Fashion Indonesia on Linkedin

Ethical Fashion Indonesia on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106918886021994&ref=ts

and Yahoo group coming soon.

Just for an example: today I met with a supplier of natural dyed, organic cotton from Bali, they also have organic cotton jersey. How long have I been searching to find just that! Do they have a website? Nooooo. Does she have facebook? Well, of course, she has the facebook application on her blackberry! So, join the group, young lady and get some orders in. Fantastic.

back to batik

... batik just won't let me go. The more I learn about it, the more thirsty for more knowledge I become. Especially when I read that in Tuban, East Java, they used home-grown, hand spun and handwoven cotton (other batik is on Indian cotton)! And the indigo is grown around the village. This method is still being used and I will HAVE to go there and check it out.

Batik is just one of the traditional fabrics of Indonesia, alongside Songket and Ikat but it is THE fabrics of the nation. It is the cloth with the most meaning and full of symbolisms. It tells you something about the maker as well as its wearer in colour, design, the way it's made and finally the way it's folded and worn.

Brides receive a precious batik sarong from her father on her wedding day, it may be custom made with with symbols signifying the new unity of the 2 families. These fabrics are handed down from generation to generation. The thought of documenting the special day in a piece of cloth which is completely unique and precious to be a family inheritance somehow speaks to my little heart. On my last trip I was fortunate enough to visit Kathmandu where I bought 3 traditional fabrics which is on the shelf between my new Garut batik that a kind group of local women gave me and my Swiss print cotton with teeny-tiny flowers. I have been collecting fabrics for as long as I remember; many bought on holiday and rarely even made into clothing as they seemed to precious with memories.

Some batiks are only for royalty (as still worn by the sultan in Yogyakarta); but everyone wore a casual batik cloth around their waist back in the day. And even nowadays batik print shirts and fashioned dresses are worn by young and old.

HOWEVER... of course with modern times, modern mass productions methods are implemented. Many "batiks" are not even made by the batik method of wax resist dyeing but by printing by machine and... and don't fall off your chair... are cheaply imported to Indonesia from China!!!

Well, I am going to stick to tradition; on real batik the pattern is visible clearly on both sides of the cloth and you can smell the natural wax. Lets go right back to where vegetable dyes were used. All the colours, all thees vibrant blues, reds and yellows were produced naturally 100 years ago. In a few weeks I shall be visiting a batik workshop to learn the skill of handmade batik myself, and more importantly visit Solo and Yogyokarta, the two royal courts of central java and capitals of batik to visit Studio Bixa where only home-grown vegetable dyes are used. My vision is to collaborate with these places and support this traditional way of producing this precious traditional cloth.