Five Indonesian Original Woven Fabrics, Have High Prices Abroad

VIVA – Indonesia is a fabric-producing country. Not only batik but in Indonesia also has woven fabrics. This woven fabric comes from the tribes in Indonesia. Besides being beautiful, these fabrics have a high price. Some of them are even popular abroad. 

Because of this, several fabric-producing regions have experienced an increase in economic quality because they have succeeded in becoming fabric exporters. Here are some expensive woven fabrics abroad.

This typical Southeast Sulawesi cloth is very popular with foreign tourists. Fabrics that have light colors have patterns similar to batik. However, the motif is very unique and distinctive.

Examples include the betano walona koncuapa motif which is a fiction of fine ash floating from burning bushes when opening fields, the colo makbahu motif, the pomegranate bongko motif or rotten pomegranate, to the Papuan pomegranate motif.

A sheet of woven cloth with a width of 60 × 4 meters is priced from Rp600 thousand to Rp700 thousand.

Not only known in Indonesia as a high-priced cloth, but Palembang songket also has prestige in foreign countries. The price of this famously beautiful cloth is quite high, starting from Rp1.8 million to Rp50 million.

Usually, songket with a selling price of tens of millions is an old type of songket whose age can reach hundreds of years. Songket motifs are also inspired by nature such as Chinese Flowers, Bintang Berantai or Limar.

Woven fabrics from East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) have a high selling price. Woven fabrics in NTT also have various motifs and colors because they are made by each ethnic group in NTT.

NTT's largest woven ikat fabric hole originates from Japan. For the price, a sheet of NTT woven cloth can reach Rp10 million.

4. Dayak Weaving

This Dayak, West Kalimantan woven fabric has several different types. The price of Dayak woven fabric varies depending on the quality of the fabric and the complexity of the motif. The average price for weaving a good quality Dayak Sintang is two million rupiah.

According to the cultural observer, Yohanes Palaunsoeka, in making a woven cloth, the Dauak weavers must first come up with an idea through a dream. Dreams about the lives of gods, humans, animals, and plants will be poured into drawings and paintings on woven cloth.

5. Ulos Batak

Ulos is one of the original domestic fabrics whose production is maintained due to high demand. Understandably, ulos is still needed for traditional purposes such as funerals or weddings.

However, the original Batak fabric is also in demand abroad. Requests came from the United States and Europe. The price of export quality Ulos cloth can reach Rp2 million for each piece.