Parading 'Thainess'

Parading 'Thainess'

With the unveiling of the latest Mrs Thailand Universe 'fish' gown, Life examines the yeas and nays of fashion inspired by cultural symbolism

SOCIAL & LIFESTYLE

Last year, it was the tuk-tuk dress for the Miss Universe contest, hailed as innovative and also raising eyebrows for its curious design. This year, the original idea for the national costume to be worn by our beauty queen at the Mrs Universe pageant caused giggles rather than uproar: a Suwanna Chedi dress, or imagine our contestant wearing a golden pagoda on her body. The organiser decided to scrap it after much public ridicule, and on Monday unveiled a new design based on pla tapien, or a tropical carp-like fish.

The designer, Tortermfan Chaisiripan, said he had 10 days to come up with a new costume, and he took inspiration from the plaided fish-shaped mobile, a popular souvenir and thus, a symbol of Thailand. At the contest in Guangzhou, China, on Aug 28, Thailand's Mrs Universe contestant Kanthicha Chimsiri will wear this golden dress with a resplendent farmer's hat instead of the pagoda one.

As the definition of "Thainess" has sparked much debate, the cultural symbols chosen by fashion designers enjoy room for interpretation, in a good and bad way, as the chedi dress attested. Wearing "Thainess" (usually traditional Thainess) is the mission of our beauty queens on the international stage. But Thai designers have long sold Thainess in various degrees of subtlety and contemporary relevance, and the way clothes speak about our culture and creativity extend beyond flamboyant beauty pageants.

What's Thainess in fashion, then?

After all, a few Thai brands do succeed abroad, but not for trumpeting their origins of coming from Thailand. Editor-in-chief of Thailand's first free fashion magazine Dont Journal, Riksh Upamaya, notes: "Brands like Disaya or Ek Thongprasert don't need to sell Thainess at all, with Thai cloth or kanok patterns. Customers don't buy it because it's Thai, but because it has a universally-accepted beauty that people see and like. It's true that our craftsmanship labour force is really good, but people don't buy it because of that. If we cannot export our creativity and can only export our crafting expertise, then there is no way out of this."

Ek's trademark silicon jewellery and avant-garde clothes, modern in mood and unconventional in shapes, are sold at some of fashion retail's coolest hot spots like Colette, Liberty and Dover Street Market.

The namesake designer is one of our champions of the contemporary end, yet notes that the ambiguity of a Thai identity in design has been a thorny conundrum that's been plaguing us for the past two decades. Still, he says traditional elements can well be part of our closets, citing the example of Japan's Issey Miyake.

"They completely approach traditional methods such as shibori dyeing, and they change and develop that by using technology. The result is Pleats Please, which is universally successful."

Ek says that Thailand's greatest challenge is in the staggering distance between traditionalists and contemporaries.

"You approach them and they're all like, 'I don't want to do this, my family has made this pattern for 120 years and I can't make a new one'. Perhaps we need an organisation to bring these two groups together to change the psychology of the traditional group. Certain arts or subjects are seen as something high which cannot be touched or tampered with, but if you leave it at that, one day it will be reduced to mere exhibitions in a museum."

This sensitivity was one glaring roadblock that hindered the usage of the Suwanna Chedi national costume -- and for the fear of disrespecting the religious site, rather than for turning our Thai beauty queen into an urn-like mascot.

Riksh says: "Many people are still too tied down by traditions. The problem with Thainess is that it's all been reduced to language, religion or whatever that we feel is Thai after [the nationalistic fervour of] the Pibulsonggram era of the 1950s. I think Thai people limit what being Thai is to an image and not an essence. It's a narrow-minded view that does not allow for moving forward because when it's a picture, it's static."

On the other hand, Issue, a local brand known for snazzy fashion bravura, thrives on the very fact that it can successfully marry Thai ethnic elements with contemporary styles. It's not always Thai, as there's also a thread of African, Peranakan or whatever culture its founder chances upon, but most of the time, inspiration does not stray far from our own history.

For founder and head designer Bhubawit Kritpholnara, to make these inspirations wearable in everyday life means a time-consuming process of digesting and expanding to create a fitting design.

"Thai doesn't only mean muay Thai, likay or khon. It can be digested to be expressed through craftsmanship, colour or prints. It's hard to explain, but it's about adjusting and being in the right proportion so it suits the contemporary form."

His "Summer Sweet" collection from 2013, which drew inspiration from Thai sweets, was created by using the subject's colour palette, as well as making prints of the actual kanom onto the fabric.

"When it's in perfect and in appropriate proportions, the design becomes special and outstanding. We've done a collection for men's fashion week in Singapore once, and it was simply to make the collars of jackets and shirts like the folds you see on krathongs."

With its brand of ethnic chic, Issue makes for a perfect feisty look when it comes to street-style snaps, but how pertinent is it to actually wear the traditional Thai costume in public? Thai partygoers have been seen to wear traditional garb at electronic dance music festivals like Ultra, while TV personality Kru Lilly uploaded a video of herself onto Instagram, all dressed in traditional silk while buying key rings at Versailles last week. The camp is clearly divided regarding her attire.

For Riksh, it's silly to be flaunting our Thai traits, looking like we dropped out of a Four Reigns novel, outside the context of weddings and functions.

"How would you feel if someone was walking around in a kimono at Wat Phra Kaew?," the editor says. "I think people who dwell on all that nationalism are lost in time. It's not practical for real life and people may do it to seek attention or to make a statement. There are different forms of outfits that lords or commoners would wear and to choose a particular outfit is to make a statement about your hierarchy and status too. I think it's something unnecessary and just looks silly because it's not part of our everyday life like in Japan. It works there because they've been wearing it for a very, very long time while there is no true Thai outfit that has been in continuous wear like the yukata."

Ask the same to Issue's head honcho and he laughs in agreement that wearing a sabai on the BTS would be difficult, but shares a side note how his friends lacked a theme for a dinner once.

"We settled on traditional Thai and everybody dressed up and we had so much fun! I feel that it isn't something impossible to do and I feel that people should just enjoy using, savouring and being Thai, because it's not something to be embarrassed about."

Like the jongkraben-wearing party gang spotted in Ultra Korea, Bhubawit too is not shy about having to wear one. In fact, it doesn't even have to be about fancy attire, as other Thai fabrics, such as cotton, also count.

"I use silk and Thai fabrics to make suits and wear those to events -- even non-Thai ones. It's so cool and breathable. Personally, I think it's really sweet when I see Laotians wearing sinh or Japanese in yukatas. If Thais don't support each other or use Thai fabrics, I don't think anyone is going to care. If we don't see our own worth, no one else will see it either."

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