Natural Dyes - Brown

"Natural dyes for textiles are generally obtained from extracts. The extracts come from various parts of plants such as roots, wood, leaves, seeds, or flowers. "

 

Brown Dyes
Colours with yellow-brown shades often called soga colour. Most of soga colour is obtained using tingi bark, jambal bark, tegeran bark and some other materials that can produce yellow to brown colour shades. To achieve many shades of brown, or produce unique shades of browns, batik crafters make their mixture not just using one kind of material.

 

Tingi Bark

The brown colour is one of the main colours in batik, often used in Batik Pedalaman. The brown colour is usually obtained from the bark skin of the Ceriops tagal mangrove or what is known as the tingi tree. 3 types of Ceriops trees are widely used in Indonesia namely Ceriops tagal, Ceriops timoriensis, and Ceriops candolleana arn.

 

Soga jambal

Soga jambal is widely used in the Javanese batik industry, soga jambal is obtained from the bark of the soga jambal tree or yellow flamboyant. Soga jambal can body up to 25 meters and has yellow flowers. The word soga has become a general term used by the Javanese community for various types of coloured wood, such as Javanese soga (Caesalpinia sappan), soga tegeran (Cudrania javanensis), and Tingi soga (Ceriops candolleana). Soga jambal produces a variety of colours from warm yellow to dark brown. The brown dye known as soga is
widely used in the Javanese batik industry.

 

By Nidiya Kusmaya

Batik Kawung
Batik Kawung
Batik motifs of this time and stature were often inspired by geometric shapes in nature. Batik Kawung borrows its design from kolang kaling, the fruit of the areca palm tree. Cut precisely in half, this fruit offers the oval and diamond shapes that are often seen in this traditional motif.
The Broken Durian & Parang
The Broken Durian & Parang
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.
Batik Tanahan
Batik Tanahan

Inspired by the small details of nature, batik Tanahan is a motif that requires expert-level hand-drawn skill to capture intricate flower buds and small plants like ferns or manggar (the flower pistil of a coconut palm tree).

Batik Parang - The Batik Library
Batik Parang

Of the many batik styles and stories embedded in each motif, none is known more for its illustriousness and prestige than Parang. Though this batik motif is worn outside the royal courts today, it still carries the reputation and cosmic wisdom embedded in its design. Here are some types of batik parang and the symbolism and stories behind them.