enticz: Embroidered Slippers

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Embroidered Slippers

Nyonya embroidered slippers are status symbols because they were handmade and took many hours to produce. Highly skilled artisans who specialized in this art perfected their skills by making beautiful pairs year after year. It was also an art that was imposed on young nubile girls so that they could attract rich handsome suitors, by way of being to cook, sew and embroider very well.

Usually, slippers were made so that they match a particular batik sarung that was paired up with a Nyonya kebaya. With colored beads and silk threads, the combinations are endless. Motifs were mostly inspired by nature and mythical figures.

Below are pictures of six interesting pairs of slippers. As you can see, the shoes are not beaded, but rather embroidered, leather soled and hammered base (probably to be worn during wedding ceremony). Such embroidery was painful and tedious work, but for the unfortunate Peranakan women of Penang, Malacca and Singapore, there were precious few options for them then. Young Peranakan girls were expected to know how to cook, sew, do bead work and embroidery in order to present themselves as potential brides. It all looks pretty now, but remember that this was hard and dull work for a whole generation of young women who had few, if any, rights.