Folk Costumes: Asian Part 1

Hello everyone! Today I will be compiling some of my old work on the blog I used to write for. When I wrote for SDC I made articles about folk costumes and recreated them on Stardoll. For this series of articles on this blog I will just include pictures of each folk costume and the write up I had for each folk costume. I include history and descriptions of each folk costumes. I will mainly focus on female folk costume because when I recreated them on SD I only did the female folk costume.

This entry will be about Asian folk costumes. I have to split this one into 2 articles because I have so many from Asia that if I were to include them all I'd have a really long article. The countries on this part will be: China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia.

Let's get started:

China:

A cheongsam also known as qipao ( 旗袍) is a dress that has a high collar with ornamental buttons. The modern cheongsam is tailored and tight fitting with short sleeves. The old cheongsam was loose aand long and only showed a woman's head, hands and tips of her feet. The modernization of the cheongsam happened in the 1920's in Shanghai when influential women of the time like celebrities and noble women adopted the new modern style. For a while in the 1960's to 1970's the Chinese government tried to get rid of the cheongsam and many other cultural things during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Since the 1980's cheongsam and other cultural things have been accepted back by the Chinese people and have made their way back into fashion. Now-a-days women usually wear cheongsams at formal or diplomatic events. Also some women are required to wear cheongsam as a uniform like as a waitresses or flight attendants.

Indonesia:

A kebaya is a set of a blouse and skirt worn by women in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, and Burma. The word kebaya actually comes from the Arab word "abaya" and the Javanese word "kemben" meaning chest wrap or blouse. Kebayas can be made of many different fabrics including cotton, silk, or batik or the traditional songket fabric. Most kebayas are heavily embroidered or brocade. Blouses are usually transparent with a chest wrap worn underneath.

There are a few different varieties of kebaya worn by different regions and different ethnic groups. The one I chose to recreate is from the Peranakan (ethnic Chinese) people called 'Nonya kebaya'. 'Nonya kebaya' is mostly worn in Malaysia and Singapore by women of Peranakan ethnicity.

Malaysia: 

A Baju Kurung is a long tunic and a long skirt underneath. It is usually worn with a tudong (hijab). Baju Kurung is Malay for "Enclosed Dress". The word "baju kurung" can also refer to the traditional clothes Malay men wear, but is almost always referring to the female dress. There are 2 different styles of tunic:  teluk belanga which has no collar, and cekak musang which has a standing collar with buttons. This style of dress has always been popular with Malay  women even in the present day. It is most popular with Muslim women but is also worn by other ethnic minorities in Malaysia, mostly due to baju kurung being the uniform of most schools and civil servant jobs.

 Cambodia: 

Sampot is a long cloth tied in various ways to make a skirt or dhoti like pants. Each style of draping has a name and different weave of silk. Silk is very important in Khmer culture and the weaving techniques used in each type of Sampot are preserved in their culture. The type of fabric used in each Sampot used to be an indicator of social class.

In present day Cambodia Sampot is only worn at special occasions, but in the olden days it was worn daily.

The ones I chose to point out are Sampot Sang and Sampot Samloy.

Sampot Sang is a simple silk skirt tied in a knot in the front worn with a simple blouse. The other style I recreated is Sampot Samloy, which is a light woven long skirt worn with a matching blouse. Puffy sleeved blouses are most commonly worn with Sampot. The Khmer Sampot is very similar to the folk costumes of the surrounding countries especially Laos, Thailand, Burma and Indonesia. 

This concludes my article for this week. I know I was 2 weeks late. I'm sorry. Stay tuned for next weeks article which will be a continuation of Asian folk costumes I've written about.