The island of Java today is sliced down into several provinces. Those provinces don't matter at this page and in this topic; what do are the cultural regions of the island, which are West, East, and Central Java, plus the area of the natives of Jakarta.

The FAQ that bugs: Why does the Central Javanese stuff matter so?

Because the greatest kingdoms in this island had been born and thriving in Central Java.

The kingdom of Mataram, which shaped most of today's Javaneseness, had its capital city in-between Solo and Yogya, and the Mataramese culture, in 21st century, still exists within its former territory that had been cut into two separate kingdoms.

So, as is the case anywhere in any country in this Milky Way, whosoever rules the territory his culture predominates.

That's how come Indonesia today is so much Javanized.

While among the Javanese themselves, the Central Javanese have been occupying the (uh, well) central place.

East Java had its own heyday during the rise of the short-lived Kediri Kingdom. In Majapahitan times, they shared the glory with the Central Javanese.

Hamengkubuwono X		Hamengkubuwono X

The pictures above are of the kings of the Kingdom of Yogya, Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX (the ninth; left) and his son and heir and today's king Sultan Hamengkubuwono X (the tenth; not left).

The apparel denoting kingly and queenly habits is black velvet embroidered with golden thread, to the Javanese since time immemorial. That's why the traditional wedding dresses of Central Java are black, like these:

The Solonese ordinary wedding dress

The Yogyanese grand wedding dress, which is a direct imitation
of the formal dresses of the Sultan and his Queen

The groom doesn't wear pants but the Sultans do, because the Sultans in the pix above happen to be kings at kingly occasions.

The other wedding dresses of Java, which is more regal and more formal, include pants like the Sultan's for the groom, in the 'basahan' style ('basah' means 'wet', and implies 'bathing'; in this style the groom appears bare-chested, and the bride in 'kemben', i.e. with bared shoulders).

Solonese 'basahan' wedding dress		Yogyanese 'basahan' wedding dress

But the wedding dresses above are most often seen in Java. They're much cheaper to rent, and the Javanese beauticians specializing on applying makeups on brides, who always fuss a lot and need some 'spiritual preps' such as fasting for several days and meditating and such, don't have to bother that much if 'just' for a wedding in black.

That is so because until 19th century no ordinary Javanese was allowed to get married in 'basahan' style, which was reserved for family members of the Sultanate. The black wedding dresses, on the other hand, have been 'ordinary people's.

In West Java, whose native people are called the Sundanese, wedding dresses are more mundially recognizable: white kebaya. The pictures above show a Sundanese bride in full dress (left), and my friend Revy Hermina in her simplified Sundanese wedding dress (right).

		Eastern Javanese people alternate between the black wedding dresses of Central Java and their own colorful array of choices. You could see weddings in which the bride and groom wear the same wedding dresses as the black ones above, but in other colors, such as red or green or blue.

As far as wedding dresses go, actually there is a rather vast array of varieties among the Javanese people, plus the hybrid wedding dresses that force a combination of the traditional ones with some insignias of Muslimness that only got in vogue since 1990's.

Some subcultures have their own traditional wedding dresses that are as strange to the dominant culture (i.e. Central Javanese) as they must be to you. In the little tobacco-exporting town named Kudus, for instance, brides and grooms wear the darkest sunglasses they could find (I don't make this up), along with their traditional dresses that are markedly different from the mainstream Central Javanese style. The headgears resemble that of some Madurese, which look like the picture at the left below, or the Betawinese, at the right:

Wedding dress of Madura

Wedding dress of Betawi (Jakarta natives)

A Javanese woman in formal occasions wears kebaya, i.e. a rather tight long-sleeved V-necked shirt, that follows the curves of the body, whose length varies from reaching just an inch below the waist, to the ones as far down as reaching the knee.

The white kebaya at the left is donned by my younger sister Bunga (an Indonesian word that means 'flower'). Her kebaya is of the Yogyanese style, i.e without a square 'interval' in the neckline (so it is straightly 'V'-lined, and closed with a brooch). The kebaya I wear is the Solonese style, that needs no brooch to keep it together since it's equipped with 'invisible' buttons inside the collar, and the neckline is 'V' alternated by a square piece.

My sister's husband Andang (that name is an Indonesian word that means 'torch';, wears a white shirt and a black jacket above a batik jarik, with a batik headgear, all of which are bound together by one name: beskap.

It is the formal male dress for a grown-up Javanese.

At Andang's waistband, at the left side on the back, he wears the Javanese equivalent of a samurai's sword to a Japanese: keris.

A kebaya is usually made of brocade or embroidered silk, and usually is somewhat see-through. Only after the revival of Muslim fashion in 1980's some kebayas are 'solid' and made of other materials, including plain cotton.

Kebaya is normally worn with a selendhang (long thin scarf) put on whichever side of the shoulder that you choose.

These are the so-called 'modern kebaya', which could be anything.

Selendhang is made of silk of any color, or made of batik whose color and motifs are exactly like the jarik (cloth worn like a sarong, but pleated and wrapped tighter) that a Javanese woman wears below the kebaya. It can be worn like Beejay does, i.e. spread all over the side of the shoulder and let to hang there loosely, or neatly folded several times and put there in a rather stiffer way. Older women (i.e. 50 years old up) wear the scarf around both shoulders, like you do woolen winter shawls.

Males wear batik jarik, too, but much more casually, i.e. it is not supposed to keep you from walking at all (well, most Javanese women born after 1960 can't walk in jarik!).

Cultural FAQ's always drive me mad, but here I must answer one of them: the difference between sarong and jarik is that the latter can't be worn that loosely, one of its end shown at the front is pleated (like when you make an origami fan), and must be kept in place by a waistband, named 'stagen', which is worn like the one you see on people in tuxedo, for the same purpose like the Japanese obi, but not that showy (click the red words if you want some pictures and explanation of the thing). Men and women alike wear stagen.

Just a note: if you are a woman and wearing the Javanese formal dress, you won't even be able to move your feet without high-heeled slippers (we wear slippers with the dress, not shoes). Jarik is binding you down to two inches below your ankles, that's why.