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buying fabric in bali: Ultra Moda

In my second adventure in buying fabric in Bali, I go to the #2 top rated place on Google Maps: Ultra Moda! Only 2 km away from #1: Paramatex. Ultra Moda only accepts cash or Indonesian bank transfer. They don't even take QRIS!

Confusingly, this place is called "Alta Moda" on Google Maps, and the location itself has barely any signage around it. My Gojek driver mentioned something about "Alta Moda" being its former name but I wasn't really listening, because I was now distracted by a place across the street called "Centra Moda". WHICH ONE IS IT!? Before you go, take a look at it on Google Street View; Ultra Moda is the one that shares a building with Serba Antik.

I walked in and, of course, asked if this was affiliated with Centra Moda across the street. The lady helping me made a face and said curtly, "No". She then became my shop assistant, following me around and helping me look at fabric, and answering my questions about which floor to find which type of fabric. I guess some people might get annoyed by constantly being followed around by an employee, but I'm pretty sure it's literally their job description to follow you and help. Also, this place is massive and I didn't even know where to start, so it was nice to be with a pro!

fabric1

fabric2

fabric3

And even on the stairs! A fire hazard in some places.

Again: this place is massive. Four floors and an elevator, and some of the wall shelving even pushes aside on rollers to reveal ... more shelves! The lady that was helping me happened to move a shelf aside, and I saw a beautiful (but thin) gradient fabric in the back shelf and of course I had to have it. I'm going to have to layer it with lining (kain ero / kain hero / furing), and when I asked about it: no, they don't sell lining here, "but your tailor can get it for you". But I'M the tailor...

measuring out fabric

While discussing how much fabric I wanted, it was a relief to find out that they deal in meters. For WHATEVER reason, buying online on Shopee means 0.5 m at a time (I guess so you can buy numbers like 1.5 meters?), and Paramatex sells in all sorts of units (yards, meters, kg) depending on the fabric. I waited while they did some bookkeeping with the amount of meters I purchased, and then they did more bookkeeping later when I went to the cashier's. Considering the amount of bookkeeping that's going on, you'd think they'd take card payments, but no.

bank transfer info

At the cashier's, I transferred the money over from my Indonesian bank account, then sent a screenshot over to the Whatsaap (lol) number, and then promptly got it wrong because I put in the wrong number of 9's. "Did you put in five 9's?" the cashier immediately asked me -- apparently a common mistake, and I had only put in 9999. While waiting for them to write out my receipt, I then watched as a foreigner customer left to get cash and then came back while I waited for my ride.

receipt

Dry clean only ... heh. I'm never dry cleaning any of this. But I'm not an animal; I will put it in a laundry mesh bag.

Anyway, aaaa this place is amazing!! So many choices! FOUR FLOORS! Except that I've got way too much fabric now, and my next visit will have to be ages from now. Or so I say. I still need to visit Centra Moda one of these days.

Ultra Moda