Batik, Indonesia

Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique.
Javanese traditional batik, especially from Yogyakarta and Surakarta, has notable meanings rooted to the Javanese conceptualization of the universe. Traditional colours include indigo, dark brown, and white, which represent the three major Hindu Gods (Brahmā, Visnu, and Śiva). This is related to the fact that natural dyes are most commonly available in indigo and brown. Certain patterns can only be worn by nobility; traditionally, wider stripes or wavy lines of greater width indicated higher rank. Consequently, during Javanese ceremonies, one could determine the royal lineage of a person by the cloth he or she was wearing.
Other regions of Indonesia have their own unique patterns that normally take themes from everyday lives, incorporating patterns such as flowers, nature, animals, folklore or people. The colours of pesisir batik, from the coastal cities of northern Java, is especially vibrant, and it absorbs influence from the Javanese, Arab, Chinese and Dutch culture. In the colonial times pesisir batik was a favourite of the Peranakan Chinese, Dutch and Eurasians.

Batik clothing has revived somewhat in the turn of 21st century, due to the effort of Indonesian fashion designers to innovate the kebaya by incorporating new colors, fabrics, and patterns. Batik is a fashion item for many young people in Indonesia, such as a shirt, dress, or scarf for casual wear.

Kebaya is regarded as a formal attire for women. It is also acceptable for men to wear batik in the office or as a replacement for jacket-and-tie at certain receptions. After the UNESCO recognition for Indonesian batik as intangible world heritage on October 2, 2009, Indonesian administration has asked Indonesians to wear batik on friday, and wearing batik every friday is encouraged in all government offices and private companies ever since.

• Santosa Doellah has been recognised by The Indonesian Museum of Records as having the world’s largest collector of ancient Chinese-influenced Indonesian batik textiles. In total his collection are about 10,000 batik pieces.
• The late mother of United States president Barack Obama, Ann Dunham was an avid collector of Batik. In 2009, an exhibition of Dunham's textile batik art collection (A Lady Found a Culture in its Cloth: Barack Obama's Mother and Indonesian Batiks) toured six museums in the United States, finishing the tour at the Textile Museum.
• Nelson Mandela wears a batik shirt on formal occasions, the South Africans call it a Madiba shirt.
• American Artist Jessica Alba, Bill Gates,  Lindsay Lohan, Drew Barrymore, Rachel Bilson, Nelson Mandela, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, John Legend in Batik.                                                                                                                                                   

• Foreign students in Batik.

• Famous brands (ADIDAS, VOLCOM, BARBIE)