Bryan & Fiona
Palembang
Palembang is the capital city of South Sumatra Province. It has a population of 1,441,500 and is the seventh largest city in Indonesia. Songkets, or woven fabric, of Palembang is the queen of cloth and its cultural heritage is highly values since the olden days. The fabric designs have been influenced by Palembang’s cultural heritage of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. Most of the songket materials have geometric and floral designs and they resemble the richness and grandeur of the fabrics that was worn in the past by the noble people. Weaving of the songkets require techniques of high accuracy. The cloth composed of a series of threads and teranyam to create a symmetrical pattern on the fabric. Red, green and yellow are the common colours found in songket fabric. Today, the songket is used mainly for weddings and grand occasions.