Tapis Tukusan Ratu (woman's ceremonial skirt)

Situated along the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, a crucial trade route since the first millennium BCE, the Lampung region of southern Sumatra has long been a global crossroads of interconnecting cultures and artistic traditions. Lampung's sumptuous textile traditions reflect the enormous wealth accrued by noble families brought to the region through the trade in pepper, which grew in abundance. The women of Lampung developed great expertise in the woven arts, incorporating culturally significant iconography and technical knowledge of fibers and dyeing to produce a rich variety of refined textiles that included ceremonial forms as well as clothing.




Tapis are among the most prestigious textiles from Lampung and were worn by the highest-ranking women during rites of passage such as female initiations and weddings. When worn for ceremony, the tapis was accompanied by a headdress and other forms of adornment that expressed the wealth and nobility of the woman’s family.




Tapis tusukan tatu, which translates as royal stitch tapis, are the rarest variety of the cloths, with few surviving examples in museums and private collections. They are distinguished by the weavers’ use of a supplementary weft technique to float designs over the warp threads across narrow bands of the skirt. This piece is woven in alternating bands of ochre silk and dark blue cotton. It also includes panels of applique mica, a silicate mineral, that has been hand cut into small pieces that are individually stitched onto the skirt using silk thread. The quantity of the imported silk required to make the cloths, and the many hours of labor involved in their manufacture added to their prestige and value. As tapis are passed down from one generation to the next, they become revered heirlooms known as pusaka.