NBA player for the Indiana Pacers Justin Holiday has ordered batik from Blitar, designed by Yogi Rosdianta’s Merah Putih Batik with his wife, Santika.
Rosdianta said he was proud to receive an order to work on batik for the American professional basketball player. He revealed that the NBA player was actually bullied when he wore batik at an event which he uploaded to his Instagram account @justholla7.
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Netizens doubted that Holiday’s clothes were indeed batik. His management immediately found the real batik on the profile of Yogi Rosdianta, the owner of Batik Merah Putih from Blitar.
“Maybe they were browsing because I was intensively promoting to open international markets when I focussed on this business in 2019. Among them were discussions with the Russian Ambassador because I wanted to open the European market and the Indonesian Embassy was supportive,” said Rosdianta as quoted by Antara on Friday 11th February.
Rosdianta added that communication with Holiday’s management took place in mid-2021. During the conversation, Holiday ordered a batik shirt with a typical Indonesian motif.
Work began after going through the process of submitting ideas for motifs, colors, and designs. The order was started in December 2021 and is currently in the final stages.
It has taken two months to prepare Holiday’s order, starting from designing the concept then several revisions to understand the concept. The desired motive is to promote local wisdom through typical Indonesian arts.
Then came the nyanting stage; the process of glueing the wax onto a white cloth that has previously been given a batik pattern. This stage took a month with five colors, namely red, white, gold, green, and black.
“The motifs that Holiday wants are the lumping horse, the samandiman whip, the cinde drum, and the eagle. Later in the front, on the chest, there is a motif for the gate of Bung Karno’s tomb which is the hallmark of Blitar. Why was this motif taken? Cultural arts” explained Rosdianta.
Holiday’s order was quite unusual in terms of the size of the fabric needed, according to Rosdianta. In general, when preparing Indonesian orders, the maximum required material is less than 2.5 metres to accommodate XXL size. However, the material prepared for Holiday is at least 3.5 metres and priced above Rp2 million.
For Rosdianta, creating Holiday’s order is special, especially since he is a big basketball fan and was a member of CLS Surabaya as a teenager in 2002/2003.
“Even though he ordered batik, I’ve never met him. I wanted to actually deliver the order directly, but due to various limitations, it might be sent by courier. But this year he plans to go to Indonesia and hopefully this will be the moment I meet him,” Rosdianta expressed.