Songket

Songket is a fabric that belongs to the brocade family of textiles of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. It is hand-woven in silk or cotton, and intricately patterned with gold or silver threads. The metallic threads stand out against the background cloth to create a shimmering effect. In the weaving process the metallic threads are inserted in between the silk or cotton weft (latitudinal) threads in a technique called supplementary weft weaving technique.

The term songket comes from the Malay word sungkit, which means "to hook". It has something to do with the method of songket making; to hook and pick a group of threads, and then slip the gold and silverthreads in it. Another theory suggested that it was constructed from the combination of two terms; tusuk (prick) and cukit (pick) that combined as sukit, modified further as sungki and finally songket. Some says that the word songket was derived from songka, a Palembang cap in which gold threads was first woven.

The Indonesian word menyongket means ‘to embroider with gold or silver threads’. Songket is a luxury product traditionally worn during ceremonial occasions as sarong, shoulder cloths or head ties and tanjak, a headdress songket. Songket were worn at the courts of Kingdoms in Sumatra especially the Srivijaya, as the source and the origin of Malay culture in Southeast Asia. In the early kingdom age, Songkets are also traditionally worn as an apparel by the Malay royal families in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsular such as the Pattani Sultanate, Sultanate of Kelantan, Terengganu Sultanate,Deli Sultanate in Medan, Serdang Sultanate, Palembang Sultanate in Palembang and the recently restored royal house in Jambi. Traditionally women are the weavers of songket, however in this modern time men also are known to weave it as well.

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