Blangkon

The blangkon derives from the iket, a square of batik cloth folded and bound on the head each time it is worn. The ready-made sewn form appeared in the twentieth century and displaced binding almost entirely, so that the skill of tying a Javanese iket is now held by far fewer people than wear blangkon.

The shift from something done daily to something bought once recurs in dress worldwide, and its effect on knowledge is constant: a skill no longer performed daily is not transmitted by imitation but must be taught deliberately, and deliberate teaching reaches far fewer people.

The Yogyakarta style has the mondolan, a rounded protrusion at the back, while the Surakarta style is flat behind. The difference is often explained by a story about long hair bound behind and later cut, and that story is an explanation supplied afterwards.

What can be stated more firmly is that the difference between the two styles is less than three centuries old and grew after the division of Mataram in 1755, like nearly every other difference between the two courts' repertoires. The blangkon is therefore among the easiest things to point to in showing how the division of a kingdom continues as a difference in an everyday article, two and a half centuries after the treaty that divided it.