All Bead Up
Hari Raya celebration is coming soon (Aug 30-31) so many people are starting to shop for new clothes and household items as part of the preparation. On Hari Raya, Malay (and even other ethnics like Chinese and Indians) women wear traditional clothes called baju kurung and baju kurung comes in many variations. A lot of shops sell ready made baju kurung, but a lot of people prefer made to order so they can choose the fabric and styles they want.
In the past few years the trend of ornamental beading of baju kurung is huge. Everywhere in shops you’ll see ready made baju kurung with beading. You can also send your plain baju kurung for beading at a price. The beadings are concentrated at the collar and sleeves area. Since I see beaded baju kurung everywhere, when I was cleaning up my closet and found my old baju kurung, I look at it and it seems so plain now. So I decided to bling it up.
I’ve been ‘studying’ the bead works on baju kurung in boutiques. Many are beautifully intricate and since I’m self taught I can’t do it (because I can’t remember everything, and certainly won’t even ask to take picture!) unless I have a sample I can follow and I’m not going to buy them just for sample lol! So I decided to do the random splashes of beading.
It took me a total of 21 hours of work to get it done. We have a customer who does bead works and she said she usually does it in about 6-8 hours for each baju kurung. I have a lot to catch up to haha! However after all the hard work, it’s not as blinging as I wanted it to be. The problem is the color of my baju kurung. It’s black and white so the only colors of beads suitable are black, white, silver and the shades in between, so it didn’t stand out that much. But the good thing is, it cost only RM26, only a fraction of the RM100 average for beadwork at shops.
My baju kurung for this year is still with the tailor and it won’t be ready until end of this month, so I won’t have time to bead it in time for Hari Raya. It’s a beautiful emerald green and blue with palm/foresty print and it would look great with some bling-bling. Oh yeah, I will bling it!
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