Sulastri Oktavia, Batik Maker Who Refuses to Give Up

Sulastri Oktavia, 38, has refused to give up in spite of the pandemic. After two years of hard work, the Lampung batik maker has been able to survive through her batik innovations that use natural dyes.

KOMPAS/VINA OKTAVIA

Sulastri Oktavia

Making batik has again come to life at Sulastri’s house, located in Pinang Jaya subdistrict of Kemiling district in the city of Bandar Lampung. Seven batik makers, mostly housewives, meticulously apply wax to fabric. Another worker is dyeing the fabric by using a paintbrush in the former sheep paddock that now serves as a batik factory.

Having gone through two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sulastri now feels greatly relieved as her business gradually recovers. Orders for batik are coming in one after another. Some time ago, she received a large order for a number of handmade batik from the Health Office of Central Lampung regency, the Pesawaran regency administration and the Bandar Lampung municipal administration.

“With these orders, the batik craftspeople working with me also felt relieved because they were assured of an income,” Sulastri said on Tuesday (15/3/2022) at her house.

Although her business nearly closed as a result of the pandemic, Sulastri never laid off her employees, who were also her neighbors. In fact, orders for batik had decreased drastically. They continued to produce batik as backstock, but Sulastri had no idea of any potential buyers.

“At the time, my conscience responded. They certainly also had to meet their living needs. What’s more, the pandemic broke out as Idul Fitri was approaching,” she said.

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The batik they produced early in the pandemic started to pile up over the months. With batik sales nosediving, she had to cut her expenses. Sulastri look for various ways so her handmade batik business, which was established in 2019 six months before the pandemic, could survive.

However, she proved to be a tenacious entrepreneur. Sulastri decided to take out a bank loan as capital to carry on with her batik business and pay her employees. She also benefited from the downtime to innovate, such as producing batik dyes from natural materials.

At first, she tried to make dye by boiling the bark of sungkai trees (Peronema canescens) and distilling the resulting liquid. “During the pandemic, sungkai leaves became known as a herbal remedy for Covid-19. As a lot of bark was left over, I tried to process them into a natural dye for batik,” she said.

KOMPAS/VINA OKTAVIA

Sulastri Oktavia

From conducting several experiments, she obtained a brown dye. To produce the dye, the sungkai bark is boiled for 5 to 6 hours. The liquid is then passed through a sieve and then left to cool for several hours. After that, the waxed fabric is immersed in the liquid and then dried out in the sun.

She also made brown and cream dyes from a distillate from the skin of jengkol beans (Archidendron pauciflorum).

From the dyes, she has been able to create batik with soft colors, evocative of classic batik.

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Unexpectedly, the batik made using natural dyes attracted buyers. Several of Sulastri’s relations ordered several pieces after seeing the photos she had uploaded to social media. To attract a lot more buyers, she innovated further by designing a variety of new motifs. Lampung’s handmade batik has long been known for the siger motif, resembling the headdress of noblewomen.

She tried designing new motifs like the volcano, Anak Krakatau. Through this motif, she wanted to illustrate the devastating volcanic eruption of 1883. Besides this, she also created a durian motif to depict the excellence of the fruit in Lampung. Other motifs include an elephant and ashar (four o’clock flower), the provincial flower.

Marketing

Aside from product innovations, Sulastri also developed a marketing strategy to promote sales. During the pandemic, the various exhibitions and bazaars featuring the products of micro, small and medium enterprises, which many batik makers took part in, had come to a halt. So, she offered her batik from door to door to potential customers, among them the employees of the Lampung provincial and municipal/regency administrations. From them, Sulastri managed to secure several orders of her batik to be made into uniforms.

She also used social media for online marketing. Buyers from a number of cities ordered her batik, sold under the brand As-Syafa, through social media.

Steadily, her batik business started returning to normal. Last year, she sold an average of 30 batik pieces per month. When there were orders for uniforms, she sold around 70-100 pieces of batik per month.

Younger generation

I started out by saving money from my salary to buy the materials for making batik, such as cloth and dye.

Sulastri is a member of the younger generation of handmade batik makers in Lampung. She was not born into a family of batik makers, and her parents were workers who had migrated from Java to Lampung.

She gained her skill in batik making from Laila Al-Khusna, 63, an entrepreneur who started a handmade batik business in Lampung branded Batik Siger. Sulastri worked for around seven years with Laila, who later encouraged her to start her own batik business.

“I started out by saving money from my salary to buy the materials for making batik, such as cloth and dye,” she recalled.

Today, Lampung’s handmade batik segment is continuing to grow with the emergence of young entrepreneurs like Sulastri. Through her business, she is not only helping the neighborhood housewives to earn an income, but also spreading her enthusiasm for and skills in handmade batik.

Sulastri Oktavia

Born: Teluk Betung, 6 Oct. 1984

Husband: Bobby Michael Vantoni

Children: Three

Education:

- Beringin Raya state primary school 3

- Bandar Lampung state junior high school 14

- Persada vocational senior high school

Awards:

- Runner-up, Lampung provincial batik making competition, 2018

- Winner, most unique design, city of Bandar Lampung, 2018

- Runner-up, batik making competition, city of Bandar Lampung, 2019

This article was translated by Aris Prawira.