Islamic Fashion Festival

About a month ago Kanch told me that we are showing at Islamic Fashion Festival, my initial reaction was ‘oh really how interesting’ and since that day we’re both been watching fashion shows that we usually would not have thought to in order to understand the culture of the women in the Islamic world. Two words spring to mind – beautiful and elegant to describe these women.

Being intrigued on what exactly were the laws on Islamic Fashion and what it means I Google it and I found an interesting quote from the Qur'an

“And say that the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye Believers! turn ye all together towards Allah, that ye may attain Bliss.

—Sura 24 (An-Nur), ayat 30-31, Qur'an[1]”

I think its incredible how women these days stick to their religious rules and are yet having so much fun at these fashion festival with all sorts of color, fabrics, shapes and cuts....this is creativity sets them free.

Usually in fashion you see boundaries being pushed with sexual references or simply not covering enough of your bits and pieces. Looking at some of the images from past IFF runway shows I've been fascinated with how much these designers can do with certain rules implemented. Keeping religion in mind, this is a different kind of challenge, making a garment look incredible covering almost 95% of the body and Kanchan Couture likes challenges so bring it on.

I've seen beautifully printed fabric and draping from designers of past IFF shows and its quite inspirational. I love how designers are forced to focus on different aspects of the garment as the length can't change but embellishments, colours, draping, layers and drama is encouraged.

We are in the process of designing and making a 10 piece collection, which has brought an excitement in the air – one afternoon Kanch and I were talking about one of the 2 pcs outfits and it great to see how we are totally on the same page of what Kanch's vision is for the collection, so stay tuned to see the beauties go down that runway!

Have a look at some of our inspiration images.

IFF Founder, Dato Raja Rezza

Love, Petra

Enquiries: +852 2117 1782 | info@kanchancouture.com

www.kanchancouture.com | www.kanchancouture-bridal.com

…Kool Kuala Lumpur

With just three weeks into the year I seem to find myself to be sitting at airports or on planes a lot pondering life or the happenings of the recent trip. A few weeks ago I got an email from a production company in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia asking if I would come and be part of a TV Champaign where I would have to talk about my inspiration and how Europe had influenced my career as a Fashion designer…and so a few weeks later I was in KL.

Not knowing what to except of the place or the people other then the little research I did on the weather, which helped me, pack appropriately….30 degrees Celsius and sunny, who wouldn’t be excited?

Stepping off the plane I was whizzed of the studios to meet with the clients (the TV Channel) and the production team, the wardrobe was chosen and I given questions to answer about my inspirations etc that was eventually turned into my script. The day ended with a crew dinner where we all loosed up having a drink and talking about the coming days.

The next three days were filled with filming and a photo shoot. Although the pieces that was being filmed was merely a few seconds, a whole lot of work went into the set up of lights, camera and all the action. Made me grow a newfound respect for Hollywood and Bollywood, where the movies are hours long. I cannot begin to imagine what it takes to put together a full-length featured film.

Hours of hair and make-up, 60 takes, laughing / quarreling with the director, 500 photographs and several poses later…voila there we had all the raw cuts needed. Working on projects like this gets my heart beat racing and a twinkle in my eye… the excitement, energy, buzz of people and how everyone supported one another made this particular project a fun adventure.


In the mist of all this I had an afternoon off thus decided to take a quick tour of the city soaking in some sun and culture….the first stop was the Batu Caves and famous Hindu temple where I got chased by a wild monkey, next was the Batik making factory where they showed us how the ancient art of Batik was done, the pewter factor, a range of shops ending at the PETRONAS towers. Which I was informed are the largest towers in the world, the tallest single building is in Dubai.



The process of making Batik was the most interesting as my mind started to tick about how I could incorporate it into my next collection.

The process:

_A piece of white or dyed silk is stretched by two sticks on either side holding it up; next a pattern is drawn using a pencil
_Then a little tool called a “Chanting” (a little copper bowl with a spout attached to a wood or bamboo handle) is filled with a mixture of hot wax + resin and used to trace the drawing that were first done in pencil
_Fabric paint is used to fill in the areas that need to be colored in (the wax stops the colored ink from spreading)
_Once it is dry the fabric is put in a bucket of chemical fixatives making the color “fast” or permanent
_Lastly the wax is washed away as the fabric is boiled in a mixture of ashes and chemicals

After 3 days of work and lots of fun... leaving new friends, long hours of standing in front of the green screen, hot weather, palm trees and the beautiful Malay hospitality was hard…well its all in the name of fashion!