Bangli, Peace and Harmony

Weaving Industry in Bangli

The Bangli Regency is well known for its wooden and bamboo handicrafts. Nevertheless, its inhabitants keep on trying to develop new handicrafts like weaving products.

According to the Head of Bangli Industrial and Commercial Affairs, Drs. Sang Made Suryawan, his department delivers training and facility assistance to develop this weaving industry. "It’s by considering the fact that the local market is still conducive for woven clothes such as endek," he says while adding that such a cloth is widely used for daily fashion, office uniform, needs of rituals and others.
It is Mrs. Muklen, a villager of Selat Tengah Hamlet - Selat Village, who became a pathfinder and instigated the work of the woven ikat industry that did not exist before in the village. Supplied by skill and foster parent partnership with a craftsman from Bona Village – Gianyar, makes her one of the successful craftswomen running in the weaving industry.
Up to these days, the endek cloth she produces by a non-mechanical weaving tool (ATBM) has given her satisfying earnings. She also expands the market access through promotion and she established cooperation with other parties. One of them is taking part in the exhibition on the Bali Arts Festival (BAF) held annually in Denpasar. "Its proceeds are pretty fair. My products are acceptable to consumers at affordable prices ranging from IDR 40,000 to IDR 60,000 per piece," she said.
On talking about business development, she said that she experienced quite some obstacles. Amongst them are financial matters and unfair competition. By now, many products having a similar endek motif of Balinese style are for sale at markets, but they are made by silk-screening so they can be sold at lower price than that of genuine endek products.
Mrs. Muklen hopes that the government will give protection to the real endek weaving product, which has become one of the superior products of the Balinese people and which is an ancestral heritage of the Balinese. (BTN/suka)