geringsing fabrics in bali

If you have been to Bali you must have come across a lot of local handicrafts which people love to take along as a souvenir. However there are some serious local handicrafts which you can not have enough of. Gerinsing Fabric is one of them. To get them you have to travel to Tenganan, Pegrinsingan village where you will find the original Balinese people still devoted and practicing their culture. It's a 60 minutes drive from Depensar but you will absolutely love it.

Take a stroll in that village, enjoy the view and the culture.Meet the locals interact with them as they are definitely the most welcoming and wonderful people. You will come across a lot of locally made things there and Geringsing is one of them. So this was the purpose of my trip and I was exploring for the best I could get. I went into a shop where a local woman was weaving the traditional Gerinsing fabrics and turning them into clothes.

Since i was curious, I asked a lot of questions to her and surprisingly she answered them gladly and explained a lot about how the fabric works. They use a double weave to make the clothes. Gerinsing clothes are considered to be used for sacred motifs and carry a lot of importance in traditional Balinese attire. The process starts from making the pattern, more than 20 patterns are available on an average. Most famous ones are cakra, kabeng (scorpion), cemplong and cecempakan flowers, pitola and wayang kebo. Most difficult of them is to make the pattern which depicts a buffalo puppet. My curiosity led me to ask her the question that whether the rumor about using the real blood for dyeing the threads is true? It was answered with a smile that it's just a rumor and they use dye from Morinda Tree. It is complicated skill which has been passed through generations and the tradition is till going through. Gerinsing Fabric is specially worn on the local ceremonies like Ngusaba Kasa which is a new year celebration for Balinese people. Tourists visiting the village can easily buy this fabric directly from the weavers, price starts from Rp.50,000 depending on the quality it can cost up to 15 million Rp.