A hinggi is the mantle a man of East Sumba wears — one over the shoulder, one at the waist — and it is warp ikat. The pattern is tied and dyed into the threads before a single weft is thrown, so every figure arrives already stepped, already mirrored, already fixed.

This system takes the cloth literally. The overdyed indigo is the page, not a background. Undyed cotton is the drawing. Kombu red is reserved, the way it was reserved for noble houses and for the funerals of the great.