Women's skirt

1850

A long women's skirt, consisting of a cloth sewn together into a cylinder which is wrapped around the hips, is called "tapis" in Lampung. On the woven striped cotton cloth motives are embroidered in gold thread. Also other glittering materials were sewn on the cloth: pieces of mica and white metal discs. The more embroidery there was on a cloth, the higher the status of the woman who wore the tapis. A girl had to have embroidered a tapis before she got married. The traditional costume doll of the bride from Lampung also wears a tapi.\ This tapi was donated to the museum in 1894 by two administrative officials, the then resident and secretary of Lampung, P.H. van Hengst and J.A. Aeckerlin. In those days the handmade tapestry was already quite rare.