This all started when I saw a guy wearing a beautiful Kurta as he was going to the Mosque during Eid. The child in me just went ‘I want it’. But unfortunately, the mother in me was too busy to draft up the pattern. Then on one very quiet week at home, I decided to drop everything I was doing and went ahead making the pattern for my Kurta. My interpretation is just a long shirt with mandarin collars and long sleeves without the cuff. Easy as I already have a shirt pattern. What was even better was that I discovered that there was a formula in drawing up a placket!
Next was the fabric and I remembered that on my recent trip to South East Asia, I bought lots of sarong fabrics from Bangkok. When I opened my suitcase, the blue one immediately leapt out towards me (literally as I had too many fabric stuffed into the suitcase) and my decision was done. You can see from the picture below why.
And on I went sewing the Kurta. This was a relatively easy task as I overlocked the edges instead of the usual french seam that I do on shirts. The result is a garment, which my landlady aptly said, reminded her of the movie ‘The King and I’. Well, the fabric did come from Thailand.
I initially wanted to make it to thigh length but on a video chat with my sister, we both agreed that the length gave it a bit of elegance. It is also amazing how the gold lines stood out more than the blue fabric itself.
As Monday was a really cold day, I grabbed the closest jacket to the door before I went to work. The result was a mash-up of Asian and European prints with a splash of colour against the sea of commuter black and grey. I also wore my spiral trousers I made last year to complete the look.
I absolutely love layering all my clothes at the moment. The cold autumn seems to help as well as I can chuck more on. The real task now is to make it look effortless and to stand out from the crowd. Surely the age of peacocks has returned?
Stephen Yong 