Thursday, July 20, 2006

Giving Sabah batik a leg up

KOTA KINABALU: She may be a new kid on the block among fashion designers in the country but Marjorie Vitales, 24, is recognised as a pioneer in promoting Sabah’s unique batik tinungkusan.

In Kadazandusun language, tinungkusan means heritage, and the theme used by Marjorie in her creations reflects the Kadazandusun, Murut and Rungus ethnic groups.

Aptly, she uses the label Tinungkusan for her creations, which were modelled by the finalists of the recent Unduk Ngadau 2006 beauty pageant held in conjunction with this year’s Kaamatan harvest celebrations.

The Penampang-born designer admits that public response to her creations is still slow and attributes this to the limited market in Sabah because batik is still not widely used by locals.

She added that she also faced stiff competition from companies in peninsular Malaysia, especially those in the east coast states that had already made their mark of producing quality batik.

“I’m not at all deterred by this. We must continue with the effort to popularise the use of batik in Sabah and this is what I’m doing through Tinungkusan,” she said.

“The uniqueness of my batik creation lies in the fact that the theme is based on the culture and arts of Sabah’s ethnic people and, surely, I would like the people of this state to be proud of the Tinungkusan batik,” Marjorie added.

She started designing as a hobby but took it up seriously last year after completing her studies at the Sabah Institute.

The company that produces the Tinungkusan batik began operations in 2002 and now has about 100 creations.

While the designs are created in Sabah, a company in peninsular Malaysia does the batik printing.

Marjorie said she also features the flora and fauna of Sabah.

Among her collection are men’s shirts as well as women’s sarong and dresses.

Source: BERNAMA

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