Not too much flesh, please
Published on: Thursday, May 28, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: Fashion designers have been advised to ensure that the evening gowns worn by Unduk Ngadau contestants at the State-level Harvest Festival this year do not show too much flesh."We are not looking for sexy legs or models showing off their bodies," said Chairlady of Sabah Unduk Ngadau Kaamatan 2015, Joanna Datuk Kitingan, adding, "fashion designers must understand.""What we want is an evening wear that can be worn by our Unduks proudly. It has to be classic, practical and elegant. We want something that people will want to buy. We want something that can be in any function, be proud of it and can be brought into the international scene," she explained.
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She said this in light of much criticisms and comments received in relation to the Unduk Ngadau evening wear via social media. "We have been the organiser for Unduk Ngadau since 2008 … we try our best to improve our organisation and look at feedback we received via social media. There are many suggestions and we will look at the practical ones to help improve the organisation and Unduk Ngadau image," explained Joanna. "We are rich in terms cultural costumes and they all have the potential to be adapted to reflect our identity. It is an opportunity for designers to design costumes and show them off in a runway to enhance the image of the Unduk Ngadau," she said. Joanna also said that they emphasised the representation of traditional costumes from each district and encouraged the coordinators to come up with costumes that had not been highlighted before.
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"We have lots of ethnic groups so instead of wearing those popular traditional costumes, we want a variation and, therefore, we need to go back to basics and refer to our history to find out what will the Unduk Ngadau be representing."And I think that it's good because we want to make people be aware of the history. We want to return to basics and from this we can see the evolution of our traditional costumes," she said.
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According to her, the Unduk Ngadau had been endorsed by the Ministry of Tourism and contestants will spend their time at the museum to learn more about cultural tourism and ways to promote it. The Unduk Ngadau winner will represent the Kadazandusun woman who is dignified, proud and confident, willing to sacrifice for the community as well as intelligent to represent the country, she said. "And this year, we also want them to be aware of the conservation of endangered wildlife species. The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has come up with a new subsidiary title "Miss Conservation" and it will be given on May 29 during the Sodop Unduk Ngadau," she added. Meanwhile, State-level Unduk Ngadau 2014 winner, Cheryl-lynn Pinsius has mixed feelings about the upcoming State-level Unduk Ngadau competition.Although she feels sad leaving her duties she is glad that soon there will another person to carry these out. "Being an Unduk Ngadau had taught me lots of things in terms of social communication. My confidence level has improved," said the Asian Tourism International College (ATI) student.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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