Margherita Missoni loves Hmong haute couture

Hands up who loves checking out Tommy Ton’s fashion week street snaps as much as I do….

And hands up who loves seeing celebs mixing ethnic dress with designer threads?

Being a member of one of Italy’s foremost design dynasties, Margherita Missoni is known for her fashion sense and could afford to wear just about anything, which is why I love that she’s wearing this jacket which I am just about 100% sure is Hmong, or at least from a south-east Asian Hill Tribe.

Just like the couture that’s on the much-anticipated catwalks of Paris, a crazy amount of work goes into the traditional garments of all the different Hill Tribe people. If this jacket were produced in the old-fashioned way, the lady who made it would have grown, harvested and woven the cotton, spun it into thread, woven it into material, drawn intricate batik designs onto it with wax or tree resin, dyed it with indigo (which is made from fermented indigo plants and which also would have been made in the village), removed the wax and excess dye, embroidered designs over the top, pleated it and then finally made it into a garment. Now if that doesn’t deserve attention during the haute couture collections, I don’t know what does.

Of course these days the Hill Tribe people sell machine-made garments in markets, such as this skirt which I remade and showed you back in February… but even so, there’s still a fair bit of handiwork involved in it. Anyway, I’m just glad that ethnic dress is getting a bit of attention from an internationally recognised fashionista, as you know how much I love it (new readers – just go back through a few posts and you’ll see what I mean!)

(Sorry about the spacing in this post, I can’t seem to fix all that white space no matter how many times I edit!!)



Category : ethnic dress, Hmong batik, Hmong embroidery