I was attending "Gelar Batik Nusantara 07" together with Fe (one of the contributors here) that held at JHCC, 19-23 September 07 with the theme Batik is Cool. I personally don't agree that batik is cool.

To me, batik is not cool. Batik is elegant and classy. However, Yayasan Batik Indonesia and the event organizer have a reason for choosing cool to be bound with batik. They would like to introduce batik to younger people, to make them understand about batik, loves batik, and feel batik as part of their life nowadays.

I should say they succeeded with the event and the vision. I saw many young people, average age 18 - 35 were shopping around, looking at the batik counters, and appreciating Batik more than ever. I have been attending many batik exhibition and I could say this one was great.

Lots of the batik exhibitors prepared some batik with more colors, motives, and chic enough for youngster. Yes, I know chic with batik sounds a bit weird, but I couldn't found any other words to describe it. It is chic.

Can you imagine of batik patchwork? Yes of course. But, can you imagine that it looks like patchwork but it actually is NOT a patchwork? It is a batik tulis fabric, and they draw all the patchwork motives by hand. Isn't it magnificent?

Can you imagine a ball gown using batik as the pump gown? With a high waist style and pump sleeves top? Or pump skirt batik with a sleeveless top made of batik too? Or a pair of shoes using yellow leather and batik on its side? Honestly, I couldn't imagine that before. I mean I could imagine that, but I couldn't see that it is so great since the motives of batik that we had was pretty odd. But with today's batik, I believe many concept and design could be explored furthermore.

This time they also provided many batik using pale colours, such as pink and brown, blue and khaki, off white and pale yellow, etc. Really pretty and feminine. I was wondering if those batik producer was informed about how to use color palette and what colors are the trend for this season or next season, I could feel that batik will be much more suitable for fashionista and youngster.

I attend the event twice, too bad I wasn't able to attend the fashion show. But I have seen some of the creation that will be shown on the fashion show, and it was great. In the middle of the hall was the installment of several styles of batik and some space to show the process of canting and many more.

One stand that took many publicity and attention from the attendant was a stand that using batik as a kimono. They used batik fabric to form women and men's kimono. The booth was decorated with bamboo and the kimono was hung like kite, so it was quite eye catching. Even the sales girl used the kimono and sat on the tatami when they were not servicing the guest. The guest was allowed to sit on the tatami too. Interesting isn't it?

They have many kind of batik, with various price range. Starting from USD5 - USD700, you could choose anything that suits your taste, style, and wallet of course. Overall it was a great exhibition. Hopefully they will create this kind of event soon and hopefully this time they will use chic for the theme. Hehehe...:D

Ah ya...I forgot to mention, we were choosing fabrics and scrambling around with well-known Indonesian ethnic designer. :D Yes, Ghea Sukarya Panggabean. Hehehe... if she bought the fabric on the same booth, we could say that the fabric that we chose was not bad at all huh? Haha...

Anyway, there were some celebrities there such as Wulan Guritno, Ghea, Dhini, etc, but I felt a bit pity for them, since they couldn't really focus on the exhibition. Well, what do you expect to focus on, if you walk like four steps, and almost every booths' owner that you pass on, asked to have a picture with you? :D

Ah, some of you might asked what did we buy from the exhibition? :D Hehehe...Fe and me bought a lot of batik fabric, batik sleepwear, batik shawl, ethnic stuff, etc. Haha...we surely enjoy the event. Next time, make sure you won't miss this kind of event!