The evolution of Malay traditional wedding attire in Peninsular of Malaysia / Nasa’ie Zainuddin

Malay marriage ceremony is one of the Malay cultures that still maintained over the years and practiced until now, although the custom have gone through several changes. Writing about the Malay traditional wedding attire is still not widely produced. However, there are efforts of being preserved in the form of presentation or collection of objects as material culture by the museums or arts and cultural organizations. The comprehensive documentation about Malay traditional wedding attire is still limited and given less attention on the evolution of their clothing. Clothing describes the identity of the wearer; thus, the documentation of the Malay traditional wedding attire is important to be studied especially on its identity and the evolution. The objectives of this research are to the identity of Malay traditional wedding attire through its style, silhouette, accessories, embellishment and types of fabrics, to analyse the development of Malay traditional wedding attire and to document the chronology of the costumes beginning from 1960 to 2016. The study had been conducted using qualitative research approach. The costumes were collected from various sources and separated into three era which is the post-traditional, modern and millennium. The analyses outlined twelve types of Malay wedding attires in terms of style, silhouette, accessories, embellishment and types of fabrics and then, categorized in a timeline starting from the post-traditional era (1960-1979), modern era (1980-1999) and millennium era (2000-2016). This research acts as future reference to the nation and elevate the knowledge for many people regarding of Malay wedding attire. The research is also significant to ensure safeguarding of cultural heritage and equitable development of cultural product in facing today’s fast changing fashion development and global challenges.