Throughout his 40-year-long reign, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) visited Java—the old Indonesia—three times, making it one of his most visited destinations. He made his first trip to the neighboring country in 1871, two years after taking the throne.
Java at that time was more like a European quarter, and King Chulalongkorn’s visited the country to immerse himself in European technology and management styles. During each visit, the monarch would be given a collection of one of Java’s cultural gems—the batik. The young king found them so impressively beautiful that he would buy more for himself. These batik clothes, however, were never worn and were instead kept in the royal archives.
These pieces get to see the light for the first time after almost 150 years in an exhibition that includes rare surviving batik pieces of its kind, each of which boasts painting, coloring, and printing techniques many of us have never seen before. Truly a must for fashion history buffs.
