If batik is going to be carried forward by a new generation, what would make them want to wear it in the first place? 

When Falahy Mohamad returned to Pekalongan during the pandemic, he began looking at batik differently. 

He had grown up in the city but had spent much of his life away from Pekalongan. Returning home gave him the chance to look more closely at a craft that had always been part of the city around him. 

What he found was a culture that was still very much alive, but also facing questions about where it belonged in the present. Falahy began studying batik seriously around 2020. 

For the next few years, he went deep into the craft. He worked on batik that was highly detailed and expensive, learning more about the material, technique, and thought behind it. But eventually, another question emerged. 

If batik was going to remain part of people’s lives, who was it being made for? 

Falahy felt that the work had become too expensive and too far removed from the people he wanted to reach. It needed a bridge. That realization eventually led to Metaflora, launched around 2023.

Bringing Batik Closer 

For Falahy, the answer was not to make batik less meaningful. It was to make it easier to live with. He wanted batik to become something young people could wear as part of everyday life rather than something that existed mainly as a cultural object. 

“Batik should not only be ‘culture’,” he says. “It should truly become part of young people and everyday life.” That means thinking about what happens when batik leaves the display space and enters someone’s wardrobe. 

Does it feel comfortable? Is it simple enough to wear without overthinking it? Does the design feel connected to the way people dress today?  

For Falahy, these questions are not separate from preserving batik. They are part of it. He describes the goal simply: something that can be worn easily, feels good, and remains simple without compromising its values. 

It is a different way of thinking about cultural continuity. Instead of asking young people to come closer to tradition exactly as it is, Metaflora tries to bring tradition closer to where they already are. 

The Bridge Between Tradition and Now 

This idea of a bridge is important to Falahy’s journey. Before Metaflora, he had spent several years developing very fine, expensive batik. He eventually realized that its distance from the market was itself a problem. 

“If the product is too expensive and too far away, it needs a bridge for people to enter,” he says. Metaflora became that bridge. 

Its approach is contemporary, but not by simply removing what came before. Falahy brings his background in architecture into the way he thinks about batik, approaching it conceptually and experimentally rather than treating the craft only as a matter of motifs and patterns. The result is an ongoing exploration of how traditional craft can take different forms. 

Materials are part of that exploration. Metaflora prioritizes cotton-based and natural materials for the lines discussed in the interview and tries to keep as much of its work as possible in Pekalongan, including weaving and smaller components such as buttons. The team is also exploring alternatives to plastic buttons. 

Colour has its own story. In the early stages, indigo became an important area of exploration because it was one of the natural colours that seemed relatively feasible to develop. But Falahy does not see blue as a permanent identity for the brand. Each year, the team wants to explore different colours, textures, and forms. 

The point is not to arrive at one final version of contemporary batik. It is to keep exploring what batik can become. 

When Sustainability Meets Everyday Life 

That same thinking extends beyond what a garment looks like. 

For Metaflora, sustainability is not a single material choice or a label attached to the finished piece. Falahy describes it as a way of thinking about how different decisions connect, from materials and local sourcing to design and the way water is managed. 

Water, in this sense, becomes part of the wider question of how batik is made and how its surrounding resources are managed. 

Through Green Batik, water management becomes one part of Metaflora’s broader approach to sustainability, alongside material choices, local sourcing, design, and other decisions within the workshop. 

For Falahy, these things cannot simply be treated as separate checkboxes. 

“Sustainability has to be innovative,” he says. “If it is only green but not relevant to the market and modern life, then what is the point?” 

It is a question that brings the conversation back to the people who will eventually carry batik forward, because making something more sustainable is only part of the challenge. It also must remain something people want to live with. 

What Makes Something Worth Carrying Forward? 

There is a tension at the heart of cultural preservation.  

A tradition needs continuity. But continuity does not necessarily mean keeping everything unchanged. 

For Falahy, batik must be allowed to move. That might mean experimenting with a different colour. Finding a new material. Rethinking a button. Keeping more of the work within Pekalongan. Considering how water is managed. Or simply designing a garment that someone can reach for on an ordinary day. 

None of these decisions, taken alone, determines the future of batik.  

Together, they point toward a different possibility: that cultural heritage can remain rooted while still changing shape. Falahy calls this process “batik being reborn,” with a new face and a new spirit. 

Perhaps that is the more difficult task. Not convincing young people to preserve batik because they should, but giving them a reason to choose it. A reason to wear it on an ordinary day, in a form that feels like their own, and if batik is going to be carried forward by a new generation, perhaps that is where its future begins.