Dec 26, 2012

Adventure in tailoring: the Barong Tagalog


Some moment ago my mother discovered an old fabric whilst organising her wardrobe. She immediately thought of me and consequently handed over the precious vintage gem. Mother claims that it was a fabric from the Philippines, acquired by one of her sisters during travelling back in the 80's. Much to my amazement I was instantaneously reminded of the barong Tagalog as soon as I studied the delicate fabric! If you could recall I had posted about the Philippines national costume a few years back and my intention to get hold of it, with an almost identical substitute following the entry.

Naturally I brought the fabric to my favorite neighbourhood tailor to turn it into a shirt. Without fail the skilled man managed to produce a well-fitted shirt with strategically-placed details. The diaphanous property of the cloth combined together with intricate embroidery detailing easily wins my heart (another sheerness added into my wardobe - a predictable pattern perhaps?). In fact, the peek-a-boo net serves as a playfully seductive element in this rather classic fabric - a rather subdued surprise which can even be worn to public functions, including conservative Malay weddings (which I did, recently). I might be inaccurate but I feel this is the closest I could get for a barong shirt thus far...





Wearing custom tailored barong shirt with Uniqlo cardigan and pants, Marni at H&M sandals


2 comments:

Elegantesque said...

this shirt is nice !

wanna follow each other on GFC and Twitter ?

Kisses
Hannah
Elegantesque Blog

Aleksandra said...

Amazing shirt !
Happy Holidays !

http://www.olastory.com/

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