Giriloyo Village

What to See & Do

The activity of batik-dyeing has been going on since 1654 along with the building of the Royal Palace’s complex. The Palace assigned few courtiers to guard the tombs. Because of the regular relationship with the courtiers, the local gained knowledge about how to dye batik. As the time went by, the lack of batik crafts people made them cooperated with people from Giriloyo village to dye batik. The people from Giriloyo took the plain cloth and take it home with them. The cloth would be given back after they finished the dyeing. Because of that, Giriloyo’s people began to develop their skills in batik-dyeing and finally open their own business. Giriloyo village’s biggest achievement was to be written in MURI (Records Museum of Indonesia) as the inventor of the longest batik cloth.

Giriloyo Batik Village

Visiting the village, you can learn a lot about batik motifs and its philosophy. Giriloyo’s batik survived with its traditional motifs in the middle of the development of modern-batik motifs. The traditional motifs have its own philosophy, for example, Sido Asih (so that the one who wears it will have a lot of love), Sido Mukti (if it wears by bride and groom, they will have wealth and happy life), Sido Mulyo (he/she will have a noble life), Truntum (blossoming love), Madu Bronto (love as sweet as honey) and many others. Besides that, there are also other motifs which have sacred value and can only be worn by the Sultan and the family of the Royal Palace.