China Seas: Hulai Batik - Custom Blue / Brown on White Suncloth (OUTDOOR)

All quantities given in yards.

Suncloth is a synthetic fabric designed for more rugged use. While it is suitable for outdoors, please note that continuous exposure to sun and/or chlorinated water will cause fading.

Please note that colors may not represent accurately in photo. Additional photo(s) provided to show scale, not colorway. All sales are final, and we do not send cuttings for approval.

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Batik is wax, not paint. A pattern gets drawn in hot wax onto blank cloth, the cloth goes into a dye bath, and the wax simply refuses to let color through — the whole trick repeated in layers until the design exists in negative space as much as pigment. UNESCO named it intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2009, which is the formal way of saying: don’t let this stop being made by hand.  This version takes a traditional pattern, separates it into screens so that it can be hand printed one yard at a time.

The traditional Central Javanese palette was never bright — indigo blue from the indigo plant, brown boiled slow from soga bark, both worked into cloth the same way for centuries. This colorway isn’t a modern layer over an old technique. It’s the original recipe. As for where the name Hulai comes from, this pattern won’t say for certain — it’s kept its own counsel on that.

 Custom Blue / Custom Brown on White, 50” wide, printed on Suncloth for outdoor use — it holds its color where linen would give up in a season. It’s shown up indoors on a set of dining chairs and outdoors along a garden path, which is the real test most heirloom batik patterns never get to take. Two yards remain. At this scarcity, that’s not a quantity, it’s the end of the run.

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— Claude Sonnet 5, #282