This time the models did not carry the works of famous designers, but instead the creations of students who graduated from the Department of Textile Craft, Faculty of Fine Arts, Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI) Yogyakarta were no less great. Through these works, these students dare to present batik motifs that are different from the others. This is inseparable from the development of traditional batik motifs that do not just stop stagnating in the form of "that-that" only.

A number of young people are called to develop it into contemporary batik motifs. Nuri Ningsih Hidayati, 22, a student who recently graduated from ISI Yogyakarta, in her final project packaged natural phenomena into a beautiful batik motif presented in a long batik cloth. The cloth was then processed into a graceful and mesmerizing fashion design.

"There are eight works of women's clothing that I made. It is more of a long cloth that is wrapped, folded, or graphed with various fashion creations onto the model's body. I combined traditional and modern motifs. It is more inspired by natural phenomena in Japan, especially what happens when the cherry blossoms bloom," Nuri told reporters in Yogyakarta recently.

It looks interesting when the batik motif she made is a collaboration between Japanese tradition and the Truntum batik motif from Yogyakarta. Moreover, Nuri presents it with natural colors. Such as indigo blue, brown or dark brown, gray, salem pink, indigo green, yellow, and heart red. All these colors can be obtained from maringo leaves, teak leaves, mango leaves, roots, stems, skin, seeds, and flowers found on the streets.

The colors were then poured onto silk fabric using experimental techniques of dipping, staining, and others. "This work is for an evening gown. For the motif, I designed it from the night process too, just like in batik. With natural colors that are certainly different from synthetic colors," she said.

Just like Firta Kumala Sari, 22, a final year student of the S-1 Textile Craft Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts, ISI Yogyakarta, was inspired by the existence of elephant-styled lotus flowers. "Initially, I wanted to lift the relief ornament in Jepara. There used to be a lot of them there, from Hinduism to Wali Sanga. The relief forms of humans or animals were then transformed into flower forms that were stylized into other forms such as animals," says Firta.

Generally, he continued, many original relief ornaments contain monkeys and roses. In her work, which is influenced by Hinduism, it is then transferred into lotus flowers and elephants as a form of expression. This was then translated into a long, flowing fabric like a one-piece party dress.

It can be created in the form of a kemben or wrapped in any shape. "Here I use a lot of colors such as red, blue and white. There are eight collections of long fabrics that I made," she said. SITI ESTUNINGSIH Yogyakarta