Cover story
One cloth, six months.
Written by the Tenun Sumba team with the Kambera weavers’ group.
Morning in Kambera begins with the soft knock of a backstrap loom. Beneath the stilt houses, the weavers sit with their legs stretched out, leaning back against the strap that keeps the threads taut. A single hinggi can take from one rainy season to the next dry season.
The longest part happens before any weaving. The warp is stretched out, then parts of it are tied off tightly so the dye cannot reach them. Those ties become the motif. Each dip in indigo makes the blue one shade deeper, and no two cloths are ever exactly the same colour.
“Rush it and the colour won’t hold. Cloth follows the seasons, not the orders.”
That is why we never take orders with a deadline. Each cloth is sold once it is finished, and half of its price goes straight to the weaver who made it.
