There may be an occasion during the assignment that warrants me to wear the national costume. In 2010, I wore a silk Baju Kurung Telok Belanga to the Imperial palace in Tokyo when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor had an audience with Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.
It was cold that April morning but I wouldn’t have worn anything else but the national costume to the palace (never mind the fact that we didn’t get into the palace, except the Bernama photographer and the TV crew!)
However, the national costume has taken an evolution of its own recently, if those on display during the Miss Universe pageant were anything to go by. Not only ours but also those from other countries.
I wondered whether these designers had gone overboard in their creativity to interpret the national costume. Most, if not all, the national costumes on parade at the pageant in Sao Paolo, Brazil were rather bizarre to the naked eye.
In fact, they had been described as tacky; wacky, even.
I remembered when in school and reading the newspaper about Yasmin Yusof becoming the second runner-up for the Best National Costume for the Miss Universe 1978 pageant. She wore the Puteri Perak attire. In 1993, Lucy Narayanasamy was in the Top 10 Best National Costume ranking (I don’t know what she wore back then!)
The national costume should represent the uniqueness, originality, natural, culture and tradition of a country and it’s people.
I read that each costume is usually chosen by the director of the respective national delegation to represent the cultural essence of the contestant’s homeland.
The designer of the costume is Amir Luqman Othman. He had used the Wau Bulan as his motive. I don’t want to go through the entire ensemble as you can read it here.
But seriously, do you see anything “Malaysian” to this ensemble except for the songket and Deborah Henry herself?
In my family and I believe in many Malay households, the songket is a heirloom.
Traditionally, the Malays wear costumes made of songket during ceremonial functions such as installations, investitures, religious celebrations, and weddings.
Nowadays, the usage and wearing of the kain songket is most obviously apparent at formal and ceremonial occasions like weddings, convocations and state functions.
Deborah Henry’s national costume for Miss Universe used songket from the Royal Terengganu Songket sponsored by the Yayasan Tuanku Nur Zahirah, a foundation under the royal patronage of the Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Nur Zahirah.
It is a pity that the songket was not used as “regally” as it should be.
But thank God it didn’t make to this list.
2 comments:
love to read your post-
Fauziah, i was at the closing ceremony of the World skills Competition in London two days ago. While other participants came in their national costume or at least something that showed where they came from, ours were almost invisible ...even our flags were hardly seen. I am very nationalistic in that sense too. I make sure that we wear our national costume wherever we are.
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