Theresa Pulido heads the Mirah’s Crafts division of Princess Mirah Design. Karen Davis is the general manager of Bali Fabrics. Photo by Ryan Lely
East Sonoma is home to a fascinating assortment of businesses that go largely unnoticed by the general public. One such company is Princess Mirah Design, located on Eighth Street East.
There really is a Princess Mirah; she is the great-granddaughter of the last ruling king of Bali. In 1981, she and her American-born husband, Carl Burman, started Bali Fabrics, Inc., which designs, produces and exports traditional colorful batik fabrics. The U.S. headquarters, originally in San Rafael, moved 17 years ago to Sonoma to the location now occupied by the fig pantry.
Over time, the creative community began to recognize the quality of handmade fabrics, and artists were captivated by the exotic patterns and brilliant colors of batik, incorporating them into designs for quilts, clothing, wall hangings and art pieces. With the artisan movement penetrating all aspects of the American culture, the demand for batik textiles increased, and as Bali Fabrics grew to meet the demand, it outgrew its small building and moved to its current warehouse space.
Princess Mirah herself designs several collections a year for Bali Fabrics, creating seasonal palettes of vivid hues and intricately wrought motifs that are all hand-stamped. The fabrics are dyed by local artisans in small villages in Indonesia. A copper block of the motif is coated with hot wax to stamp the design on the fabric, which is then immersed in light-reactive dye and sun-dried outdoors. The wax resists the dye and when the fabric is boiled, it comes off and reveals the pattern. The dyeing, stamping and boiling can be repeated as many as 14 times, yielding a color so deep that the fabric becomes reversible. There is a three-month lead time to produce the fabrics, as the process is labor-intensive and dependent on the weather — sunny days are crucial for the colors to achieve maximum saturation.
The finished fabrics are put on bolts 44 inches wide and 15 yards long and shipped to the Port of Oakland. Approximately 67,000 yards of fabric a month are trucked up to the Sonoma warehouse, where they are sorted and stored for delivery. Bali Fabrics general manager, Karen Davis, has been with the company for eight years, “We are a wholesale operation,” said Davis, “and several times a year we go to trade shows where our newest collections by Princess Mirah are unveiled. We take orders from fabric stores and specialty shops, and we fabricate to order, so the quantities of each pattern vary.” At the Sonoma warehouse, the bolts are separated and shipped to the retail outlets. Batik ranges in price from $7.50 to $20 a yard depending on the fabric. Bali Fabrics creates batik in cotton, rayon, corduroy and flannel.
The company has recently launched a new division, Mirah’s Crafts, headed by Theresa Pulido. “We’ve asked well-known artists in different disciplines to come up with ways to incorporate the fabrics in fashion—whether clothing or accessories like handbags and totes—in wall hangings, gift boxes, cards, albums, wherever their inspiration leads them,” said Pulido. Mirah’s Crafts now has a line of packaged kits that are sold online as well as in crafts emporiums and at art supply stores such as Fine Line in Sonoma.
Princess Mirah Design
Bali Fabrics
www.balifab.com
800.783.4612
Mirah’s Crafts
877.355.5511
www.princessmirah.com
