Salema

Saleha Akter Urmi; [Facilitator]

Traditional dress (embroidery)

Fultola (embroidery)

Embroidery (EMB)

Decorative

Salema used to see her mother wearing this dress design. She looked so beautiful that Salema was inspired. She told her mother, 'I will also make this dress pattern.' When she first wore it, everybody liked it and she began to wear this style often.

Traditional dresses vary according to age, gender and marital status for Rohingya women. Unmarried girls wear zagara (long dress), kezze bazu (skirt), tepbin kezze (short sari) and seira thai (petticoat). On the day of the wedding, brides wear lamani hor (wedding gowns) that are bought for 1 lakh kyat. Married women wear emeshtee (same printed blouse and skirt), titi (one piece with different designs in the middle and on the side), panda one saat (clothes in batik print), kezze one saat (t-shirt and skirt). Sometimes the designs and prints of these dresses are inspired by actors. Rohingya women find Bangladeshi attire strange, and tailored their own clothes out of saris given to them when they first arrived. They find their traditional dresses to be unique and worthy of memorialization.