August 16th, Bangsar Village Kuala Lumpur – The students had put on a spectacular graduation fashion show with traditional and innovative ways to submit their last ambitious project before leaving the school, specially dedicated to all the teachers and students.

In order to assessed the design level of teaching and the ability of understanding amongst the student in design, the Faculty of Fashion in Limkokwing University of Creative Technology students had prepared more than 40 sets of clothing, through these hard work they aimed to understand the national heritage, folks’ culture and art features in deeper motion, highlighting its cultural relevance and original design.

Through the idea of the theme ‘Creativity in Motion’, the students can show their talents towards cultural, style, fashion and innovation. During the garment showcase, each student must choose a theme and all of the displayed articles of clothing are designed and made by the student.

Talented Experiences – Applause are like Thunder

The fashion showcase does not only show the hidden talents and sophisticated capability of the students, beautiful decorations and the music rotation was very well-organized during the showcase with the help of the lecturers.

Starting from the first step of choosing fabric, craft production, and even presenting the main theme, all of the lecturers and students had put their full effort and knowledge in designing the garments.  Through the non-stop applause from the audience, I strongly believe that everyone there during the showcase was truly inspired by the creativity and energy, given by these future fashion designers.

Andy Yap Hock King - Blueprint from Chinese Empress

The theme that Andy Yap had chosen is the “Lost Queen”, and his main feature of his garments is the incorporation of the culture from the Chinese cheongsam with a touch of creative fantasy style.

He said that, although the overall feeling of the finished product was not easy to cooperate with the Cheongsam but if you were to look into the detailing, the characteristics of the intentional Cheongsam were kept in the design around the neck.

‘I had made references of the Empress’s winter clothes during the Qing Dynasty and I realised that they liked to add some floss around the neck to keep it warm, so most of my design has this feature.’ He also added that, his design was incorporated with a little heavy metal-style elements in order to make his design to be just like an oriental Empress that had accidentally gotten lost in the heavy metal dream world.

Enchantment of Cheongsam

During the discussion about the reason he had chosen Cheongsam as the blueprint. Andy Yap said that in his view, Cheongsam can highlight the characteristics of women in the East that he is looking for. It looks subtle, but actually is very sexy with more straightforward and transparent characteristics to reveals a person’s character and self-cultivation.

Andy Yap also mentioned that the clothes that he designed was intentionally to look that way as he wanted to keep the upper portion of the original line of Cheongsam. He then added to it with quality shining fabrics in order to give the unique feminine touch to look more charming.

“It is a great feeling to be involved - starting from the garment production process, overlooking the line of stitching procedure, patchwork matters and other technical issues, until my design was completed and in the perfect look”. Andy Yap had won himself the Stylo Young Designers’ award 2009 with all of these efforts.

Amira Ahmad - Praise the Great Culture

In Amira’s point of view, clothing seems to be one of the most wonderful things on earth because clothing can bring the history of certain culture back to life. She also said that many of her peers do not know or never even keep in touch with the understanding of the Malay cultures and unique assets, such as the Malay pottery - Labu Sayong and other items.

So, Amira had set her mind to have her design theme on Labu Sayong. She mentioned that Labu Sayong actually has rich Malay tradition in it in term of artistic features and therefore it is the most suitable item that can be used to express the Malay Culture.’

Clothing Presentation – The Sense of Pottery

Before she started to design, she studied in detail about Labu Sayong and believes that the lines and curves of the pots resemble the women’s body line. With this reason, her designs of clothes, colors and texture are all very similar with Labu Sayong.

“The hardest part actually lies in the design of the cloth, such as the gluing and sewing process and how to show the three-dimensional sense of Labu Sayong”. Therefore Amira had to come out with lots of ideas in order to deliver the designs.

In the end, Amira had chosen the golden with yellow silk cloth and using the skill of upper-layer folding, she lowered the body joints to show the three-dimensional feel of Labu Sayong. Amira also hope that in future many of us can use variety of ways along with the experience in this series of Labu Sayong.

Design to Respect the Different Culture in the World of Beauty

Instructor Iris Peitzmeier said, clothing is like a memory of video tape – it is a full collection of certain era, recording of the social development and the history of a certain city.

Therefore the main purpose of LimKokWing University of Creative Technology organised the fashions showcase is to guide its students to understand the arts, appreciation from various ethnic cultures, styles and clothing visual expression, added with artistic experience. This also will lead the students to explore their unique-self and simultaneously produced a unique array of clothing.

Appreciation from the Anthropological Point of View

Iris also said that in recent years, many people have notice the changes that the traditional clothes have gone through and the differences with the trend nowadays. All these are important characteristics of clothing. The variety and bizarre way of modification are only one visible expression of this trait; therefore a new cultural concept was born through the cultural clothing.

“I hope that the graduates can through the concept of ‘cultural of innovation’, understand human creative inspiration and pursuit the endless of beauty, which would certainly be appreciated by the different types of beauty throughout the world.” she added.

Iris always told her students that fashion design should begin with ‘human’ nature, combined with life experiences – it is the exploration of the relationship between clothing and personal. She wanted the students to go from an anthropological point of view, appreciate and discuss the clothing around the world and learn to respect the difference ethnic cultures.

“From an anthropological point of view,  to appreciate and discuss the modification of the world heritage and aesthetic concepts, this is the best way for students to see the infinite possibilities of beauty from the art of fashion.”

Understanding and Keeping the Culture for Long

“When we appreciate the fashions from different countries and ethnics, we will be able to teach the students on how to explore the social characteristics of fashion.” She explained that all the traditional costumes have a story behind it and after you understand the story, you will know the social values of the existing costume and thus respect the culture - in order to keep it for long.

As a result, she feels that it is necessary to guide the students to discover the story behind it and she also believed that by using the point of view to describe each clothes, it would be easier to lead the generation, or even generations’ resonance.

“In order to let the students to sort out their fashion designs’ accordingly from different cultures, it is not an easy task actually but this batch of graduates had been able to complete this task, apparently they’ll have even greater performances in future.” Iris said.

Iri Diyana – Injected New Elements into the Tradition

Culture needs to rely on the younger generation in order to be passed down, Iri Diyana surely agree with this idea. Her design theme for this time surrounded with Malay traditional costume – the Kebaya.

Iri pointed out that the dress had always shown individual cultural attitudes. Clothing is uniform; on the other hand is also a decoration.

Invasion of Rock - Scattered Sparks

Iri included a lot of rock music elements in her project. She explained that her discovery had lead to the information that many Malay youths love to rock - even herself, so she believed that there will be a different style if she includes the rock elements in Kebaya.

In her design, Iri only used two tones of colours – black and gold. As for ladies, the blouse includes the style of Kebaya, with an added on belt and sew with the Malay traditional image on the clothes. These simultaneously show the concept of the cultural fashion.

As for the men line, Iri also use the same black and gold as the main theme. She added leather as a factor to create the sense of rock style, consecutively for the male model to look more like a Malay warrior with rock morphed.

Good Fashion with Patriotism

Looking back, it has been through the Malay traditional fashion- the Kebaya, Chinese cheongsam and Indian Sari that started a very broad historical picture in fashion. Clothing has been treated as a mass memory in the world, although as a symbol rather than being non-text form or the story of culture in innovation of Malaysia through out the 52 years.

Malaysia has been able to catch up with the independent train at the end of 50th year. During that period, the people were still wearing their traditional clothes to identify their identity.

During 60-ish to 70-ish era, it is the time when our nation learns to stay as one country. This the time that people learned from other ethnic through the clothing, experience the different stages of other culture and even if the language is not the same, clothing become the most common and convenient way to recognise or know each other.

The Essence of Tradition

For the duration of 80-ish to 90-ish era, during Malaysia’s economic take-off times, people are more easily and able to absorb the information from outside. The culture from the West took place in our country and simultaneously traditional clothes became the history of the olden days. Nevertheless, people still remember to put on the traditional clothing during festivals – this action seems to tell everyone that traditional clothing is only appropriate to put in the museum for people to appreciate even more.

From Millennium till now, fashion design had transformed to be more colourful - and personalized design is often highlight all the times, but the slogans of retro can still be heard everywhere.
But the so-called ‘Retro’ style creates a question of what is it really representing? Earlier on, the students from faculty of Fashion LimKokWing University of Creative Technology had went their way in finding the best interpretation in the fashion showcase, to show the essence of traditional treasures.