Lillian weaves a Sepik fashion

COVER STORY

By BALTHAZAR MORIGUBA
OUR women have been weaving bilums (string bags) for many, many years before the white man came.
But weaving bilum wear such as dresses, blouses, tops and skirts? Did they have the idea or knowledge to weave dresses, blouses, tops and skirts from those dried fibres extracted from bark, sisal or vine, then plait these into strings to weave bilums?
But weaving dresses, blouses, tops, skirts from plaited length – like ropes? No! Our women folk did not have that knowledge or idea at all. Besides, they were content with their fibre skirts, pandanus skirts or grass skirts and bark cloths they were using to cover their mid-sections.
Weaving bilum dresses, blouses, tops and skirts as clothing is a recent innovative creative idea borne and tested out by Florence Jaukae, with her community mothers of Kama, in Goroka, Eastern Highlands. She is now PNG’s first successful bilum wear fashion designer.
A Sepik woman who recently started her bilum wear fashion is Lillian Faye Alings. She is from Yarr Village in the Keram Local Level Government, Angoram District.
Lillian Alings started her bilum wear fashion in 2017 in her humble home in Wewak. Weaving bilums is second nature to her and she did not need much coaching to get going. However, one day she decided to give it a try to weave a dress.
After completing it and seeing the beauty of her creative artwork, designs and colours of her first ever woven dress; she wore it to showcase it within her community. This caught the eyes of her female relatives and community members, as well as her few friends. There on, few requests started coming in for her to weave bilum dresses, blouses, tops and skirts.
She has been weaving bilum dresses, blouses, tops and skirts as per requests from her clients in and around Wewak. She also weaves dresses, blouses, tops and skirts for small and young girls to wear for special occasions.
Demand for her creative bilum dresses is not high as yet but with the few orders she gets, she has been keeping herself busy since 2017. For now, she is working alone at home with two to four requests. If there are more requests, she engages two other women in her community to assist her.
She said: “It takes about four to six weeks to complete a full length dress and blouse, and four to five weeks to complete a top and a skirt, as it is labour intensive. And it also depends on size, whether the order is for a large framed lady, a smaller one or a young girl.
To weave her clothing items such as dresses, blouses, and tops, she starts from the top around the neck and down to the main body. And for the skirts, she starts from the waist down to the lower body.
And the designs and colours she chooses to use are mainly depicting the brown and clear rivers of Keram and the designs are from her clan and family. However, the ever popular bilas bilum designs and colours originating from Wosera, Maprik and parts of Yangoru are also used. She only uses plaited strings from tree barks and not factory processed strings.
Her bilum wear fashion products range in price from K200 to K600 depending on the sizes, design and colours used. Her items are also going for hire for K50 to K100 a day use for graduations or other special events in Wewak.
All of her fibre is from natural sources where her ancestors have sought their vines for millennia to weave their carry bags and fishing nets and other ceremonial items. She also uses mainly traditional dyes as much as possible.
Care for bilum wear
She said as intricate the design and construction of the clothing items are, extreme care should be taken when washing or cleaning the bilum wear to avoid stretching, shrinkage and discolouring. Bilum wear made from tree bark fibre, sisal or vine is more delicate than other materials. It should only be aired.
Lillian said she would like to have her bilum wear showcased by models in Port Moresby and even overseas like her fellow Sepik sister Florence Jaukae. Her bilum wear is purely woven from tree barks with intricate and elegant Sepik designs, patterns, styles and colours.
She acknowledges the fact that the art of weaving a bilum is not unique to Sepik women only, but women in other parts of Papua New Guinea do have this art too. The only difference may be in just how and what designs, patterns, colours, styles and materials that they use to weave bilums. Her main problem now is the marketing of her product.
She knows that bilum wear is unique and has the potential to create a niche market for her and uses every opportunity in Wewak to wear it as a walking advertisement.
Lillian is determined to see the bilum wear transform into something bigger and better for her, the Sepik people and Papua New Guineans as a whole.
Hopefully, Papua New Guinean women will take pride in wearing our very own bilum wear fashions.

• Balthazar Moriguba is the Music Technician at the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies.