Bai and Joe, the creative duo behind the fashion brands ohmmbybai and Populo Batik, have spent decades reinterpreting Indonesian Batik and textiles like Lurik and Ikat through traditional handcrafted techniques and natural dyeing methods. For their latest project, Redefining Connections, they turn away from producing new fabrics.
This new chapter begins not with new fabrics, but with what already exists, as they ask: What life remains in our scraps and leftovers?
Can we grant them a new identity and purpose? The answer led to a profound collaboration with Empu, a collective of female artists based in Yogyakarta. Together, they explore connection not as a fixed state, but as a constant, evolving conversation—between materials and memory, between nature and human hands, between what was discarded and what can be reborn.