I remember that when I came to Sarawak in 1991 it was not easy to find Borneo Batik design sarongs. The only place known for their Native designs was Fabriko, established in October 1989.
We felt that it was time to find out what’s for sale in the market and went one morning with a friend to explore town. On our way to India Street at Ban Hock Lane we stopped at one of the shops, Syarikat Fathimah, were they are selling Sarawak Borneo Design. The owner and staff were very helpful and showed us the different fabrics like Jackguard or Perles but also cotton (cheapest) they are selling per meter or 4 meters to make the Baju Kurong the Malaysian traditional dress but is also enough to make it into Sarong Kebaya. To our surprise all the Borneo design fabric is printed in Korea, Japan, India and Kelantan (West Malaysia). I always thought that it was printed in Indonesia since there is no factory here in Sarawak and it sounded more logical to me since Indonesia is world famous for their Batik. Prices vary widely from RM 9 to 66 in these shops in Ban Hock Lane and India Street, which are more focused on local buyers, but tourists also like to buy them.
Another shop in India Street, Merjiah Trading, showed us also cotton, silk, polyester, viscose and a lot more fabrics in a different price range. They also sell Sonket fabric for men who use it for their traditional outfit and it was beautiful and hand printed in India. Sonket is not cheap: they sell it for RM 145-285 but it is worth buying! The shopkeeper told me also a nice anecdote, saying that if you go to the material shops in India often you find beautiful Sari material named after their famous Bollywood stars. That might be an idea to name the traditional designs after our Sarawak stars to make them world famous if the sarongs travel with tourists to anywhere in the world.
We stopped also at Fabriko and this place is filled exclusively with traditional Sarawak designs from Orang Ulu designs to Pua Kumbu and they have also Kebaja fabric that you can make into your own size embroidered with the Pua Kumbu design running from front to back and also on the sleeves; that was really pretty! This shop is selling fabric in a great price range that starts from cotton (the cheapest) till Silk for official functions or weddings. In all the shops we went to the staff were extremely friendly and helpful.
Our exploration took us also to the Main Bazaar which is more focused on tourists and we saw not only sarongs, pareo’s but also bags, wallets, shawls, men’s ready-made shirts, t-shirts and realized that we never before noticed that there was so much variety in Sarawak Borneo design. We think this is really unique and must admit that it was in fact a good shopping experience and an eye opener to us.
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