The Batik Library - Blog Posts

Burke Mercantile, founded in 2017 by the exceptional Maggie Stoll, is a modern lifestyle shop that celebrates conscious fashion and contemporary design. With a focus on independent brands, Burke Mercantile thoughtfully curates each item in their collection with humans, the environment, and thoughtful design in mind. 

Participated in a collective art submission calling for artists to decorate a maple leaf with ancestral methods of design. Excitingly, we’re marking another first milestone and offering satellite workshops in Toronto.

This year, 4/20 falls during the holy month of Ramadan and we're celebrating this unique intersection with a limited run of naturally dyed batik cannabis leaf bandana with 100% of the profits donated to Cannabis Amnesty. 

Batik tulis, or "handwritten" batik, is designed using a canting. This pen-like tool features a wooden handle, a copper container that holds the wax which connects to a copper spout that is used to draw the motif.

The Parang motif meets a durian flavoured twist in our collaboration with One Ear Brand. Inspired by a traditional motif from the region of Jambi and using double-edge selvedge technique that's over a 130 years old, these large-sized bandanas boast both fashionability and practicality.

Our piece lovingly uses natural dyes. Colours and patterns may vary from piece to piece, making each garment one of a kind Colours variation tend to happen due to various reasons; water pH level, dye-bath temperature and timing while dyeing, natural dye materials harvested in different season.

The Batik designation was created in Java island since 8C. Based on the book of Old Javanese Kakawin Ramayana, Batik comes from the word ‘tika’ that means sacred painting. Batik is also created by Javanese words ‘amba’ that means wide and ‘titik’ that means create dots to form lines.

Nyanting that is also called nglengreng is a process of creating pattern on a piece of linen cloth using a hot-melted wax poured through a small spout called Canting. The wax-patterned cloth, then will be coloured by soaking it in a barrel of natural dye solution. The dye usually comes from fermentation process of various local plants.