Tips on Choosing Batik as a Present

Some time ago during farewell with Thailand team, my team from Indonesia gave them Indonesian Batik as a present. My boss asked me to choose the outfits, with budget less than IDR 3 million (around USD 250) for 3 outfits. -- Which I think is fair enough to get batik as farewell present --

Since there are wide variety type of batik that could be worn by girls, it's more difficult to search batik for girls than for guys. Some of batik for girls requires some effort and takes more time to wear. So I searched for batik which was easy to wear but didn't lose its traditional feel for my foreigner girl friend.

I found this pink Kalimantan modern batik dress.

I love the look of this batik and thought it would look nice on my friend. She could wear it to the office and to hangout with friends. The person who wear it also would look slimmer because of its horizontal pink line, and elegant due to the feeling of modern batik on that dress. So I decided to bought this dress for my friend, for IDR 450,000 (around USD 37). It's too bad that I forget the name of the shop where I got this batik dress from, but I remember the shop is located on the 2nd floor of ITC Ambassador.

Then I got 2 batik shirts with different motif and color for the guys. I got them from Batik Keris, both for around IDR 1,050,000 (around USD 87).

So, here are my tips on choosing batik as a present for foreigner:
1.  Very basic. It's for foreigner, so don't choose batik which is hard to wear
2. Take in to account where the receiver would wear the batik to and for what occasion. It's better to choose something which is commonly worn like a dress or shirt rather than a cloth with complicated way to wear
3. Depending on the age of the receiver, I think it's better to choose batik with modern pattern

As my friends were very happy to receive the present, I think that it's good since our traditional culture is well known in the overseas. I will keep spreading out this traditional culture to the next foreign team that work with my team and another foreigner that I will probably meet someday. I love Indonesia. =]

PS: I hope my friends don't read my blog. They will know the price for sure!!! >_<


XoXo,
Novi