This is the activity of the mothers in Songket Village in Halaban Sub-District, Limapuluh Regency, West Sumatra City. Almost every house is equipped with simple weaving equipment to produce songket cloth or commonly called Sikek typical West Sumatra hand-woven cloth.
The woven fabric produced by halaban mothers is called Pandai Sikek Songket woven fabric. This is because the origin of this woven fabric comes from the Pandai Sikek area of ​​Padang Panjang, West Sumatra. Singkek, Pandai Sikek means the name of the region originating from this woven fabric.
Twenty years ago, some of these citizens had worked in clever sikek as laborers of sikek clever songket woven cloth. After several years of work, the Halaban residents tried to develop it in their own villages.
It didn't take long, just armed with learning from one of the Halaban residents this compilation, now almost all Halaban residents who can make this smart sikek songket woven cloth ..
Interview1: irma (red veil weaver)
Not only the clothes and sarong produced, all kinds of formal dress materials, party clothes and clothes can be made from this weaving or songket material. Starting from sarongs, scarves, clothes, skirts, kebaya and men's clothing. men can be made by these mothers in Halaban.
To make a complete set of women's clothing requires songket yarn and gold thread with capital worth 600 thousand rupiah as a buyer of basic materials. The price of the basic ingredients is already that much, available if it has become songket woven fabric, can soar in price.
The price of clothing material that has not been finished on the songket weave fabric market is at least 2 million rupiah, some even reach tens of millions of rupiah, depending on the level of complexity in making the motive and the amount of material used to produce it.