Indonesian Songket Waist Cloth

Narrow strip of red crowded with honeycomb cells in every color available.

This songket waist cloth is from Bali, Indonesia, and dates to the 20th century. It is woven cotton. Songket is made by inserting supplementary gold or silver thread into a woven ground, a slow process that can take weeks for a single cloth. Long, narrow textile covered edge to edge with rows of hexagonal cells in red, yellow, orange, navy and white. Small stitched flowers fill each cell in tight, regular columns. A darker border runs along each side. It is 34 inches wide and 59 long.

Color restraint was never on the pattern's agenda.