Jacket (baju)

This tailored silk jacket was made for a nobleperson in southern Sumatra. Sewn from imported yellow silk and embroidered with black, white, red, and gold-wrapped threads, the jacket has a tapered waist and sleeves and a band collar. The popularity of jackets like this likely arose from exposure to tailored clothing from both West Asian and Chinese communities.

Dutch archival records discuss the import of silk into parts of Sumatra, where members of the elite had specific and sometimes rapidly changing tastes. Reports from as early as 1618 describe traders bringing the gift of yellow satin to Sumatra. Sumptuary laws forbid non-nobility from wearing the color yellow.

The embroidery on this jacket with its latticed pattern of stylized arabesques could be drawing on ornamentation of Ottoman textiles. This garment demonstrates how Sumatra stood at the crossroads of many cultures in contact and trade with the Ottoman empire and China.