Inspiring (Batik)

Last weekend I visited my childhood friend, Cici, who was my childminder's daughter. They lived in a small house attached to ours. We spent 7 years of our childhood together, making sand & flower cakes and running around the garden with the batik capes of our fairy costumes flying behind us.

In Indonesia, it is tradition for the young to look after the old. It sounds natural and ideal; in western society this tradition is long gone. Cici returned to Desa Hanja after living and a decent eduction in Bandung a few years after my family had returned to Germany. This was not questioned despite her potential for a career. First I felt disappointed for her, but then seeing 4 generations (Cici has a son called Vega Verdaus, what a name!) all living in the same house, healthy and happy looking, living in a picturesque hilly village with a community, changed my thoughts. Remember where you are. Here, family comes first, values are different than in Europe, it is not all about career&success.

What else I saw there were colours. Such vibrant colours!

Colour Lovers

Quick one: I came across Colour Lovers on Mudpie's LinkedIn forum (another good resource for ppl in the fashion industry), as I too am a lover of colour however, I get indecisive. Naturally, with the endless possibilities the combinations and shades provide you with! Colour Lovers has just helped me out BIG time as I was stuck on my colours for the range I am working on. You can search for palettes by entering 3 hues for example and then a very very long list appears. Well structured website, too. Anyway, back to work, now that I've got my colours sorted :)

Grizzly bear

Their popularity of this New York band has increased immensely since the release of their latest album 'Veckatimest' (2009). The music is slightly haunting despite being melodic and the videos visually strangely captivating .

evening view from roof terrace

What an incredible and incredibly busy week last week was. In the best possible way. This the first week in our new little house in Bandung, during which we also adopted a little cat (called 'Jelek', ugly, by the previous owner as it was so ill and horrible looking, but very cute by now)... ... ... and 3 interesting events occurred in Bandung last week...

Institut Teknolologi Bandung (ITB), as the dean himself said to me, is 'the most prestigious university in Indonesia' and internationally acclaimed. But almost more important for myself was the beautifully spacious campus with many huge leafy trees and the eager but laid-back vibes it sent out. I had a meeting with staff from the Faculty of Arts and Crafts, did a little ppt about me, myself and I (skills, interests, experience etc etc) which was basically a job interview; apparently this informal and indirect approach is typical of the Asian way. Glad to have prepared well, I had some fruitful exchanges and I will be involved there in the new term in one way or another. To be continued and confirmed.

ITB main campus

Now this is interesting: while researching ITB, I came across jBatik, Fractal Batik, created by Pixel People Project. They have won several awards, including the ICT Asia Pacific award and the UNESCO award of excellence. I have already been researching batik quite a bit but had come across nothing this innovative or original. One of the lecturers who attended my presentation happened to be part of that project and he told me that there were mixed reactions to fractal batik, many people feared that traditional batik would be undermined and the skills lost, others find digitalisation a natural progression also in batik. I replied that I was surprised to have not found any more experimental, new approaches to traditional Indonesian fabrics. This is really thinking outside the box, incorporating modern technology and does not stand in competition to traditional Batik; if anything it makes it more appealing! Read about it here. Batik was nominated a UNESCO world heritage last year. Especially since then but in the last 5 years, batik has turned into a bit of a hype here; hence my surprise how conventional most of it still is and my joy upon discovering Fractal Batik.

So, what is it? "jBatik is an open source software, custom developed to design Batik Fractal. This Java based program can be found in website www.pxlpplproject.com for user can have first hand experience to generate graphics by writing fractal formula based on L-Systems. User can also copy the formula provided in Galleries, manipulating the formula, iterations or angles of the fractal to produce various results. End results can be saved in png format for further development." taken from their website, more info there.

And for your reference, traditional batik can look a little something like this (this is a humble selection, there are endlessly many styles and patterns):

Takk, love

click here to play mix

This Breezeblock with Björk bootleg is something I just have to share. She is incredible and so are these tracks. No idea when it’s from btw but it don’t really matter I don’t recon. And this one isn’t even the epic one! That will be used for real emergencies or celebrations.

I received this among lots of gigs worth of mind blowing music from my boyfriend’s brother who a DJ in Zurich (‘Being Ed’). What’s better than receiving the whole digital backlog (no doubt his repertoire of vinyl well exceeds this) of a DJ who is on your music wavelength?! Anyway, while getting nervous preparing a presentation, this is getting me through.

First track is in fact my favourite Björk track (and ah, amazing live!) and at plusminus 1:35 she chooses a track played by Indonesian instruments, which is a nice coincidence as I am now living in Indonesia and at 1:47 one of my favourite ‘I am not a gun’ track is played. And all the stuff introduced in Björk’s voice/accent has got me through the day’s work. Björk lifesaver.

Ksubi eyewear

ah meh zing.
and well good styling.

Wool, paints, plastic & the gang : T.A.A. Manchester

The T.A.A. in Manchester was ...

Temporary; the building was a primary school which will be torn down in 2 weeks

Autonomous; strictly speaking it was a squat and well, yeah it was a squat

Arts; in the widest sense going from painting walls to poetry, unicycling, pagans and knitting with plastic-bag-yarn (plarn) for the junk fashion show

Although this was on during my work hours and I could not spend every day all day there; cycling through estates in typical Mancatraz cold drizzle rain after a tiring day was worth seeing how a bunch of creative, enthusiastic people can turn an unused building into whatever they want. In this case there was hardly an inch of wall space without paint, poster or any other colourful material. There was poetry reciting, independent film showings, a junk fashion show (that I missed, boo!) and a big Cabarave to end it with a spectacular bang.

I contributed in Obermaier's Junk fashion and crafts corner, doing origami (erm with a little/lot help from my friends) until being infected by the "but I want to make that .... and that! .... and everything!" - virus... knitting, jewelry making, sock monkey making, and upcyling in every form took place. All materials were donated and all participants volunteers. What felt good was creating things that was the opposite of what virgin products do and did it feel good to be making fashion in that otherwise consumerist and profit driven world.

And was it inspirational. ... to be less conventional in work and life. Knit some plastic! Paint on the walls! I'm no punk or painter but it's strangely liberating.