Unmarried woman's ceremonial jacket

Short, elaborately ornamented jackets like these were once woven by young Kauer women in southern Sumatra. Along with matching sarongs, these jackets formed the ceremonial dress of unmarried women. The sarongs commonly were decorated with hundreds of tiny pieces of reflective mica; such a garment would have been draped high on the chest, leaving the short jacket to cover the collarbone. In a display of remarkable economy and ingenuity, the Kauer weavers who made these jackets constructed each garment from one length of cloth. After the entire cloth had been woven, the areas that would become the two front panels of the jacket were embroidered and mica pieces attached. The cloth was then cut in half, and the top half folded to form the body of the jacket. After the neck and front opening were cut, shells were added to the front and around the metallic supplementary weft pattern on the back. The bottom half of the cloth was in turn cut into two pieces, which were tapered to form the sleeves. In this way, not an inch of the cloth was wasted. Finally, the jacket was lined with imported (often Indian) cotton.