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Monday, September 7, 2009

Tudung Ramadan

For the past few months I have been busying myself with doing offline things such as preparing for newborn (oopps! Yeah I’m already married…lol) and other errands; important errands. I’m sorry that I don’t have the time to update this blog as I had promised in the last article. I know that many amongst visitors have taken the time to fill up the tudung survey and some didn’t even hesitate to leave their phone numbers in case I launch my tudung collection. Unfortunately, I couldn’t manage to spend the time to write anything left alone preparing all kinds of lovely tudung for the official launch.

Today marks another day of fasting day in one of the holiest month in Islamic calendar which is Ramadan Al Mubarak. For those who are not familiar with the Muslim religious activities, Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and during this particular month, Muslims are refrained from eating and drinking (the basic) from dawn to sunset. Other things that are not allowed during the fasting period include but not exhaustive to smoking, indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured.

In excess?

Wait, you might felt that this is not what you saw during this supposed-to-be a special month for Muslims. You saw Muslims rush to the “bazaar” or food fiesta, buying excessive amount of food to be brought home. Food sold at the bazaar ranging from Malay-made curry puffs and other light meals to heavy meals such as nasi briyani and so on. Drinks and beverages are also sold at the fiesta. You saw Muslims spending here and there as if they were bringing home those foods for 20 to 30 people.

Unfortunately, they were just buying for maybe three to four people or could also be only for him/her.

Can they finish those massive amounts of food?

No. Not at all. No man can consume food-for-20-people at one time alone. If he/she can, then I’ll rest my case.

This scenario is for real. You can see this act of lust being performed everyday during Ramadan month. For the hawkers, yes this is a fortune for them and in fact a handsome one. For a regular curry puff, they can only sell it at about 40 cents during normal month but they can sell it for 60 cents during this Ramadan month. People will still buy despite the ridiculous high price since their mind were occupied with only the lust of having all kind of food during the break at sunset. They were deceived not by the demon, but by their own evil. If a non Muslim sees this situation, or more appropriately if I say someone who doesn’t believe in angels or demons sees this, he or she would laugh right away to the Muslim and says, “so you said the demons try to distract you with the world, but during a month where you said the demons were chained, you still chasing the world like no one business?”

Mind you though, I can safely say that this only happens in Malaysia ~ BolehLand.

Scientists and nutritionists have been arguing about the pros and cons in fasting for many years. Although there are no proven results that by fasting will improve your health and lifestyle, there are still chances of improvement. I say this because our ancestors had been practicing for thousand of years and therefore there should have been a good reason, at least one good reason, why they fast. However, a good fast should always be balanced with a good break. Without a good one, the fast might not be a good one. Furthermore, the religion clearly states that Ramadan is a month for us to offer more prayers as well as a reminder to all of us that there are others out there who live in hunger while thousands have starved to death.

There’s no point of spending excessively on food when you can’t even finish them. If you really feel like you can’t help buying them (maybe you thought that you were under some kind of spell whenever you step into the bazaar area lol), then buy them and donate to those who really need them.

There are a lot of other things that you can do during the Ramadan month besides going to the bazaar. You can go to the welfare house (any one near your place) and spend some times with the residents. You might say that they are the ones in need, but the truth is YOU are the one in need. Seeing them and spending time with them will actually heal your distracted soul and at the same time help you to remind yourself about the gaps and disparities in this world. Trust me, after one or two visits, you will eventually see the world in a different perspective and you will learn to appreciate everything and anything around you.

Remember, Ramadan is supposed to be a very good opportunity for us to start reforming ourselves as well as cleansing our spirit. All this while we have been trying hard to chase the world and at some points, we’ll get exhausted. Therefore Ramadan is the month to be observed in excitement as we can take the chance to relax a bit, take a deep breath and be patient whenever something unwanted happens, and also a chance to “reboot” our mind. Why waste it for something that you will keep on trying to achieve on other 335 days? Chill, busy yourself with doing good deeds to other people, start forgiving others, and if you have the chance, say hi to your neighbor or at least waive your hand at them whenever you see them and reward them with a smile; denoting that you are happy to have him or her as a neighbor.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all Muslims all over the world happy fasting in Ramadan month. I hope that you will all be having fun doing so and I sincerely hope that all of us will be celebrating the upcoming Shawwal happily and merrily.

Thanks to Allah for everything that He has given us.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Koleksi Fesyen Tudung Online

Penggunaan bahasa Melayu di dalam meluahkan isi hati dan ekspresi diri di laman web pada hakikatnya masih berada di paras sederhana. Tidak banyak yang gemar menggunakan bahasa kebangsaan ini di talian sungguhpun masing-masing punya penguasaan bahasa dan juga perbendaharaan kata yang memuaskan. Bukan niat saya di sini untuk mempertikaikan fenomena ini tetapi saya lebih berminat untuk membincangkan betapa fenomena ini tidak seharusnya dijadikan isu yang cuma boleh membawa kepada pertelingkahan di kalangan kita. Laman web Fashion Tudung Collection ini juga pada hakikatnya lebih tertumpu kepada penggunaan bahasa Inggeris sebagai bahasa pengantar sekaligus saya percaya perbincangan kali ini tidak akan mendatangkan apa bentuk polemik sekalipun.

Sebelum saya huraikan lebih lanjut, ingin saya ingatkan kepada para pengunjung laman ini tentang artikel saya yang lepas. Laman web koleksi fesyen tudung online ini bakal menemui destinasi sebenarnya iaitu pelancaran koleksi tudung kami. Seperti yang pernah saya beritahu sebelum ini, kami dalam proses akhir untuk menyiapkan koleksi tudung yang kami miliki. Kami juga dalam peringkat akhir untuk memilih bentuk dan cara pembayaran yang boleh memudahkan pengunjung laman kerana pada pendapat kami, ini amat penting untuk melancarkan proses pembayaran sekaligus mengutamakan aspek keselamatan dalam proses pembayaran. Jika anda punya apa-apa cadangan, saya galakkan anda meninggalkan komen di laman ini kerana yang paling penting pada kami adalah kemudahan untuk anda. Lebih mudah anda menguruskan pembayaran, lebih mudah kami menumpukan usaha kami ke arah matlamat utama iaitu memberikan anda koleksi fesyen tudung online yang terbaik.

Kembali kepada perbincangan kita kali ini, saya sebenarnya tertarik dengan isu yang akhir-akhir ini kerap diberikan perhatian oleh akhbar utama negara kita termasuk Berita Harian, Utusan Malaysia, dan sebagainya. Masing-masing membawakan isu penggunaan Bahasa Melayu sebagai bahasa pengantar di mana-mana media sekalipun termasuk di laman web. Pada pendapat saya, ini tidak sewajarnya dijadikan isu. Saya katakan “isu” kerana perkara ini telah ditokok-tambah dan dicampur-adukkan dengan usaha mendaulatkan bahasa Melayu di mata dunia. Saya merasakan bahawa perkara ini sama sekali tidak akan mendatangkan keuntungan kepada mana-mana pihak sekalipun (pada ahli politik mungkin?) bahkan hanya akan mendatangkan kerugian kepada bangsa dan bahasa kita ini sendiri.

Memang benar bahawa bahasa itu melambangkan sesuatu bangsa. Tapi wajarkah ketaksuban terhadap bangsa dan bahasa dijadikan isu berpanjangan? Wajarkah kita mengorbankan keupayaan intelek dan teknologi yang boleh diperolehi daripada keupayaan menguasai bahasa lain di muka bumi ini (terutamanya bahasa Inggeris) semata-mata untuk memperjuangkan bahasa Melayu? Pada saya tidak. Malah saya amat yakin bahawa bahasa itu akan lebih mudah berkembang pesat apabila penggunanya terdiri dari kalangan yang memiliki daya intelek yang tinggi. Bahasa itu akan jauh lebih berdaulat apabila para penggunanya memiliki kepakaran dalam pelbagai bidang; baik teknologi, ekonomi, mahupun bidang-bidang yang lain.

Apa buktinya?

Cuba kita lihat bangsa-bangsa yang maju di dunia ini. Negara Amerika (the United States) menjadi maju dan memiliki teknologi yang canggih kerana setiap rakyat mereka diberi peluang untuk memajukan diri mereka dalam pelbagai bidang. Sebagai contoh, siapa yang berminat dalam perniagaan, mereka berpeluang untuk mempelajari dan mendalami ilmu perniagaan ke peringkat yang lebih tinggi. Siapa yang berminat dengan sukan pula turut menerima peluang yang sama dan dilayan sama rata. Lama-kelamaan mereka mempunyai banyak pakar dan tenaga mahir yang masing-masing punya kepakaran dan kemahiran tersendiri dalam bidang masing-masing. Masing-masing berganding bahu untuk membentuk komuniti yang secara puratanya terdiri daripada mereka yang ‘ahli’ dalam bidang masing-masing.

Ini yang kita mahu. Berbeza dengan negara-negara lain, kita digalakkan pula untuk menceburi pelbagai bidang pada satu-satu masa. Mencuba itu tidak salah, tetapi mencuba berpuluh-puluh perkara dalam satu masa tidak akan menjadikan kita seorang yang pakar. Seorang yang serba tahu itu mungkin, tetapi untuk kita menjadi seorang yang boleh dirujuk sebagai “pakar”, kita seharusnya diberi peluang untuk mendalami sesuatu itu dari akar umbinya dan sehingga ke pucuknya. Bila kita sudah tahu di mana pucuknya, tidak mustahil pula satu hari nanti kita akan jadi orang yang pertama menemui pucuk yang tidak pernah dijumpai orang sebelum ini. Pada tahap ini, kita adalah pakar dalam bidang tersebut. Inilah yang kurang sebenarnya di kalangan kita. Kita kekurangan tenaga mahir dan mereka yang pakar. Kita ada ramai yang tahu itu dan ini tapi tak seorang pun di kalangan kita yang betul-betul tahu tentang sesuatu.

Jika kita cuba kaitkan perkara ini dengan dunia perniagaan tudung, cuba anda namakan pada saya siapakah pakar tudung di Malaysia? Saya percaya anda tidak akan mampu untuk menamakan lebih dari lima orang yang pakar tentang tudung. Tetapi jika saya minta anda namakan lima orang yang menjalankan perniagaan tudung, anda boleh menamakan lebih daripada 20 malah lebih! Ini maksud saya sebenarnya.

Apa pula kena-mengena ini dengan bahasa? Cuba lihat kepada bahasa Inggeris yang menjadi bahasa universal atau bahasa alam. Bahasa Inggeris berkembang maju kerana bahasa ini digunakan dalam berjuta-juta manuskrip dan hasil kajian dalam beribu-ribu bidang. Apabila ada yang ingin menguasai bidang-bidang tertentu, mereka seharusnya punya penguasaan bahasa Inggeris yang kuat supaya mereka boleh mengkaji tulisan-tulisan yang ditulis dalam bahasa Inggeris ini. Lama-kelamaan mereka yang tahu bahasa Inggeris menjadi banyak bilangannya sekaligus meramaikan pengguna bahasa Inggeris. Apabila ramai yang menggunakannya, barulah bahasa itu menjadi bahasa yang berdaulat dan dari situ nilainya di mata dunia akan meningkat tanpa perlu dicanang-canangkan sebagai bahasa terbaik.

Mungkin anda tidak bersetuju, tetapi cuba kita imbas kembali bagaimana bahasa Inggeris ini berkembang. Suatu masa dahulu orang Islam di negara Arab merupakan ahli dalam bidang-bidang utama seperti astronomi, matematik, perubatan, dan juga pelbagai bidang yang bermanfaat. Tokoh-tokoh besar dalam bidang ini terdiri daripada orang Islam seperti Al-Farabi, Ibnu Sina, dan sebagainya. Waktu itu, orang di Eropah masih jahil dan jika anda masih ingat, mereka masih beranggapan bahawa dunia ini tidak bulat! Apabila mereka menemui hasil-hasil tulisan ilmu ini, mereka curiga dan rasa ingin tahu itu membuatkan mereka terpaksa mempelajari bahasa Arab. Setelah sekian lama, ramailah orang Eropah yang tahu berbahasa Arab dan demi membantu di kalangan mereka, mereka berusaha menterjemahkan hasil tulisan tokoh-tokoh Islam ini kepada bahasa mereka yakni bahasa Inggeris. Apabila semakin ramai yang sudah tahu ilmu ini, mereka melakukan kajian demi kajian dan mulai saat itu, hasil kajian mereka tidak lagi dalam bahasa Arab sebaliknya dalam bahasa ibunda mereka sendiri. Sampai satu tempoh, tahap pengetahuan mereka dalam bidang-bidang tersebut menjadi lebih tinggi daripada yang pernah dimiliki oleh tokoh-tokoh Islam ini. Secara tidak langsung, bahasa Inggeris berkembang pula dari sini.

Dapatkah anda memahami analogi berkenaan? Saya rasa anda mudah faham bukan? Ini yang saya maksudkan dengan penguasaan bahasa yang sebenar. Jika kita tidak punya pakar dalam bidang-bidang tertentu, bagaimana kita hendak meyakinkan orang lain? Di sinilah sebenarnya terletak jawapan kepada teka-teki yang bermain di fikiran kita selama ini. Kalau hari ini ada orang di utara Amerika berminat tentang tudung dan bertanya pada kita, kita terpaksa menjawab dalam bahasa mereka (bahasa Inggeris) sekalipun kala ini kita lebih ahli tentang tudung. Tapi seandainya ramai pakar tudung di kalangan kita; pakar dari sudut agama tentang tudung, pakar dari sudut kesihatan tentang tudung, pakar dari sudut mental tentang tudung, maka banyak hasil kajian tentang tudung akan muncul dalam bahasa Melayu. Bila orang dari utara Amerika ini terjumpa hasil kajian ini, mereka akan berusaha untuk mendalami bahasa Melayu supaya lebih mudah bagi mereka mendalami dan memahirkan diri mereka tentang tudung. Bila dah ramai yang mengkaji hasil kajian berbahasa Melayu ini, maka ramailah pengguna bahasa Melayu di muka bumi ini.

Saya amat berharap hasil tulisan kali ini dapat menerbitkan pemikiran baru di kalangan pengunjung. Saya percaya apa yang saya sebut ini ada juga terdetik di hati saudara dan saudari semua, cuma mungkin tidak terluah selama ini. Tetapkan pemikiran anda mulai sekarang supaya lebih berminat untuk mendalami sesuatu yang bermanfaat kepada diri anda. Lupakan niat anda untuk menghabiskan masa di laman web mencari bahan-bahan politik. Saya sedar orang Malaysia amat gemar berpolitik tetapi berbicara tentangnya tidak akan menjadikan anda lebih intelek. Politik adalah permainan mereka yang petah berbicara. Tapi ahli politik juga harus berjumpa doktor apabila mereka jatuh sakit. Doktor pula harus berjumpa cikgu di sekolah untuk bincang bagaimana meningkatkan mutu pembelajaran anak-anak mereka. Cikgu di sekolah juga harus berjumpa dengan penjual tudung untuk membeli tudung (ada juga cikgu yang jual tudung di sekolah hehe).

Masing-masing punya peranan masing-masing. Ini yang harus kita belajar. Belajar bergantung antara satu sama lain. Belajar berganding bahu antara satu sama lain. Kalau sahabat anda seorang yang berjaya dalam menjual cendol dan rojak, belajar darinya bagaimana untuk berniaga. Bukan buka kedai cendol dan rojak di sebelah kedainya. Belajar asas berniaga dan kemudian buka perniagaan menjual kemahiran yang anda sedia ada. Mungkin anda sebenarnya lebih mahir membuat air minuman, lantas jika anda mahirkan diri anda lagi, anda boleh buka kedai minuman di sebelah kedai rakan anda itu. Masing-masing boleh saling bantu. Bila masing-masing saling membantu antara satu sama lain, kita akan ada komuniti yang punya pelbagai kemahiran tinggi.

Sebelum saya mengakhiri artikel kali ini, ingin juga saya nyatakan kenapa saya memilih untuk menggunakan bahasa Melayu sebagai perantara kali ini. Saya merasakan sudah tiba masanya untuk saya uji apakah implikasi (kesan) menggunakan bahasa Melayu ini lebih besar berbanding menggunakan bahasa Inggeris. Bagi yang pertama kali melawat laman web tudung ini, anda mungkin keliru. Maaf, bukan niat saya untuk mengelirukan anda.

Salam hormat,
Alisa Nurhanis

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Tudung Online

When I first write this fashion tudung collection blog, I was actually under the impression that the tudung online business can’t go any further like any other small Malaysian businesses. Well, honestly I must say that I was completely wrong. After writing few posts about fesyen tudung Muslimah, I have finally managed to conclude that there are thousands of people across the nation is searching and buying tudung via online. I must say that I am quite proud that the business is rapidly blooming and without doubt more people are looking for ways to grab some profit from this scenario.

Now we have to be very careful with this since a lot of people don’t have any idea whatsoever about how some monkeys abused the internet in order to scam not-so-savvy people like us. They used various tricks and tactics to realize their intention and therefore it is essential to know how we should prepare ourselves from being cheated by these trolls. Today I will do my best to provide you some ways to identify which is true and which is not. Be very wary of what people offer you at present day as you might fall into their traps and if that happen, I can guarantee you that you can lose money online pretty easy.

Although what I’m about to disclose here is related to tudung blog and tudung websites, you may also apply what you have learned here when visiting other commercial webpages. However, some tactics used by these scammers may vary but as long as you follow the basic guidelines, you should be fine and frankly say, shopping online for things is a fun activity as well as making our life easier in many aspects. Soon after you have read everything here, you can then easily set up a few restrictions and rules for your own use. From there onwards you will eventually master the concept of shopping online especially for tudung.

The first and foremost thing that you need to keep in mind at all times is when someone on the net claims that his site is the best on the line. This is the most common and cliché self-proclaimed statement and you can see it almost anywhere on the line. Some will claim that their site is “tudung bawal online no.1 di Malaysia” and some would shamelessly claimed that their site has the best koleksi tudung jakel. One easy way to identify which is a scam or not is by looking at their search engine ranking positions or more commonly called SERPs. For instance, if you go to Google and you type in “tudung bawal”, you will be getting about 195 thousands of results. Most of the time, those sites that you see in the first page up to third page are usually legitimate websites.

Speaking about tudung, pardon me for interrupting our talk to make a brief announcement here before we continue with our very discussion. For your information, this blog of mine has reached its final stage of “testing the water” and we (who are ‘we’? I’ll tell you later below) are currently organizing our fashion tudung collection. Once we have finalized everything, we will provide page by page images of our fashion tudung collection and if you find any that you are interested in, you are welcome then to make the tudung order using our order form. By the way, if you would like to get a sneak peek at our tudung online collection and probably having the chance to receive discounts on tudung online, you may fill up the tudung survey form below.

Let’s get back to our small talk. Buying glamorous modern hijab onine is perhaps one of the latest interest amongst Muslimah women today. Despite several negative remarks made by those who are against fashion and trend to be associated with tudung, the hijab online business keeps thriving and so far the progress is impressive. Be careful as well when you see these remarks because as far as I’m concerned, most of them have their own online businesses. Most of them are selling craps such as e-books on how to make money online in Malaysia. I say that those materials they are selling are craps because they are just trying to make money cheating people into buying their so-called e-books. Unfortunately Muslimah women in Malaysia are intelligent enough not to fall into these kind of stuffs and therefore these monkeys lose partial of their targeted audiences. Well, I’ve got to say here that no online craps can beat “real business” such as tudung business.

Most online shoppers are concern about the security of purchasing online items. Those who have credit cards like Visa or MasterCard would hesitate to buy as they are worried that things can go wrong. If you are one of them, then you are right about being cautious when buying tudung online. When the tudung website requires you to use your credit card for payment, you have to first check the webpage address at the top of your internet browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, and so on). The address should start with “https” and not the usual “http”. The added “s” at the end means that the page has an additional secure socket layer which is a protocol designed and developed to provide safe Internet transactions involving confidential information. Whenever you see that “https”, it means that you are in a secure session and you are safe to disclose your credit card information. You should also be able to see a padlock icon in the browser’s status bar which indicates that it is a secure page.

AFAIAC (as far as I am concerned), no free domains or blogs allowed secure transactions to be performed. This is due to the fact that “https” page can only be requested by commercial websites such as “dot com” or “dot com dot my” websites. For instance, this blog’s address is http://fashiontudungcollection.blogspot.com. FYI, “fashiontudungcollection” is my very own blog and it is hosted at blogspot.com. Blogspot.com or Blogger.com is owned by Google and not by me. Therefore it is a free hosted blog hence can’t perform any secure transaction. Same thing applies when you see an address like didyousmellsomething.wordpress.com. “Didyousmellsomething” is a subdomain of wordpress.com and therefore it is a free hosted blog. If you see a free blog like this asking you to enter your credit card’s credentials, please stay away from the site by all means.

I’m not saying here that free blogs or sites are all fishy. I’m saying that you should stay away from these kinds of webpages whenever they ask you to provide your confidential information. You can only trust these websites or blogs when they offer you another payment method which is money transfer from your bank account to the particular website’s owner’s bank account. This alternative is a lot more conveniences for those who don’t own a credit card or hesitate to use credit card for online purchase.

Money transfer is popular since it is secure and safer. Tudung blog/site owners usually provide you with their bank account information at their blogs/sites but you will have to initiate the transaction in the respective bank’s secure website. You just need to know the correct bank account number, the account holder’s name, and the exact amount of money to transfer to. Please ensure to keep the transaction details after each and every transaction. That will be your evidence that you have transferred a sum of money to that particular bank account and if something went wrong, you can contact your bank. If there is a fraud (which is less than likely to happen), you can lodge a police report and provide those information.

Alright, that’s all for now. Back to my announcement, I say “we” because I am not alone in this business. I am one of the team members which have 5 members altogether. Alisa Nurhanis is not my real name and it is just my pen name. However, when we launch our online tudung collection soon, we will provide real contact name(s) and nothing else but real things. We will also provide two separate bank accounts, Maybank account details and CIMB account details for your own convenience. In the future we will add more bank accounts details from other banks to further provide you with the best service.

Oh yes, the last but not least reminder to all of you. Our “koleksi tudung online” comprises koleksi tudung bawal online, koleksi tudung Ekin, koleksi tudung Ariani, koleksi tudung Dubai, and so on. I can be certain that you will be surprised to see our incomparable online tudung collection (I know, it’s a self-proclaimed lol but you’ll see). I have no intention of leaking out more fantastic news for all of you but just get ready, save some money, and wait for the official launch of our very own trendy tudung collection.

Salam hormat,

~Alisa Nurhanis

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Tudung Ekin Online

"Tudung Ekin" is the most famous tudung in Malaysia and this is due to it has been worn by a female celebrity by the name of Ekin. She is famous since she dated another celebrity by the name of Mawi. The tudung at first was not named Ekin and its original name is actually tudung awning. There is a reason though why it is named as tudung awning and I have elaborated about that in my previous post. It was now more popular by the name of Tudung Ekin instead of tudung awning. However, I couldn't verify when was the last time the tudung was mentioned and depicted as tudung awning.

Why do women in Malaysia are so fond of tudung Ekin? There must be something about the tudung since so many of them are wearing it despite the tudung's price. I couldn't see the reason though I can understand that the tudung is very beautiful and stunning in terms of its look and its color. Tudung Ekin is significantly different than other tudung such as tudung bawal and tudung Dubai. Tudung bawal for instance looks more like a plain tudung but instead of being just plain, the tudung has been embroidered with flourish curves and lines. Those curves and lines are embroidered on the tudung especially on the lower parts.

I've seen so many women wearing tudung and yet to find one that instantly grab my attention except tudung Ekin. This is perhaps tudung Ekin has a very special design to the extent that when it was worn by someone, it will immediately transform the woman's appearance into a beautiful and gorgeous woman. Contrary to the popular belief that wearing the tudung will make you uglier, wearing tudung Ekin will definitely makes you even prettier. Well, I do not want to argue or debate about it since we won't be able to come up with one and only solution.

Actually the more we look into this scenario, we wouldn't be able to agree to just one conclusion. To me, this is normal as everybody has their own arguments and opinions. Everybody has their own reasons for something and therefore I do not think that it is possible to have just one conclusion. There'll be no beauty in that and by the way, I love to have more than just one opinion so that anyone who has a rational open-minded mind would be able to choose and decide.

OK, let's go further into our actual discussion about tudung. If you look into the history of tudung you will see that tudung has gone through a lot of revolutions that what you can see now is completely different than what you could only see in the past. Previously tudung was just some articles that was worn to adhere to religious requirement. Hence the tudung at that time was just plain in color and its look. There was no fashion or any kind of trends at that ancient time.

At present time we can see that many Muslim women are wearing tudung Ekin. The tudung is absolutely stylish and they are becoming the most sought after items in the market. Women flocked to the tudung stores and most of the time they would purchase in bundles. Please do not misinterpret that statement because it is not that they are wasting their money but rather a way to save a few dollars since most of the time the tudung stores would reward the customers with discounts when they purchase more than just one tudung.

When was the lost time you see someone wearing the tudung Ekin? Well, the last time I saw was this morning ha ha. Would you like to know why? It is because nowadays it is common to see women wearing tudung ikin and sometimes you would just stop for a while and then suddenly you would realize that the "tudung that ekin pakai" is ubiquitous. In my humble opinion, that is a sign that Islam has now been practiced as a way of life instead of just a religion. I'm happy for that. Really. I still remember that when I was still kid, it is quite hard to see Muslim women wearing tudung. I'm not sure why but I do have a theory about that.

Islam is a religion that has found its way in this country a long long time ago and that was during the time of the prosperous Malacca. Malacca is situated in Malaysia (formerly known as Tanah Melayu and later known as Malaya). After some time though, Malacca was attacked and conquered by the Portuguese in 1511. From that time onwards Malacca particularly had been attacked and invaded many times by other colonials such as the Dutch, the British, and the Japanese.

In short, the people in the country at a time were being oppressed by invaders hence the religion’s imperatives and its essence couldn't be realized properly. There were only handfuls that had adequate knowledge about Islam. When the country finally became independent, the government had decided to make Islam as the official religion and from that time onwards the practice of Islam as a way of life has been gradually improved.

I read on the Internet somewhere in weblogs (or forums maybe) where some argued on why those actresses in P Ramlee’s movies were not wearing tudung? Well, I think I've given you some hints on that and I hope that you can understand the situation and the circumstances at that particular time.

Nowadays you can see almost every Muslim women are wearing tudung Ekin in Malaysia no matter where they are and what they do. I'm very proud of them though I may not be able to know each and every one of them. I wish that some time some day all Muslim women either in Malaysia or the rest of the world would be wearing tudung and at the same time all Muslim men would be lowering their gazes and live a modest life. If that could happen, I'll be the happiest person in the world.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tudung Ariani

A long time ago me and my family attended my cousin’s wedding reception located somewhere in the north region of Malaysia. As you all know, a Malay wedding ceremony celebrated in village area is typically modest and a humble one and usually attended by close families. So when we arrived there at my aunt’s house, they were still preparing some last minute preparation including the meal course. To kill the time, I mingled around with some young girls who appeared to be amongst the villagers who supposed to be helping with the preparation but did not do anything except sitting and chatting at some isolated corner for hours.

Though I didn’t condone their attitude, I had no choice but chatted with them simply to kill the time before the actual ceremony started. We talked about many things including politics and why people used the “macam anjing dengan kucing” idiom though it is obvious at present that dogs don’t usually chase cats. At one point, somehow one of the girls (I can‘t remember her name though) voiced out her personal opinion about present Muslim women. For the sake of our discussion here in this tudung blog, let’s just say that there were three girls; Haya, Fareeda, and Erra. So Haya said, “I am sure any of you can name at least 10 P Ramlee movies. If you recall any of those movies, did you realize that none of the women in them are wearing tudung though they are Muslim women? Why is that? Now fast forward to present days…how come the Muslim women are told to wear tudung? So that they would look uglier than usual?”

I was quite bewildered when I first heard her wicked critic. Obviously she didn’t wear tudung and if I recall correctly, she had quite a beautiful long and wavy hair. Just a few seconds later Fareeda broke the silence, “I agree with you. I remember when I was being reprimanded by one of the Ustazah when I was at Form 3. She told me that if I wore tudung, men would stop looking at me as a sex subject. But when I grew up more, I have learned that that is not at all true. Women still were raped by outlaws though they wore tudung! That’s why I decided not to wear tudung yet.”

The debate went on and on for a while. Erra who did wear a tudung said that her father actually encouraged her to wear tudung since she was kid. However, instead of forcing her to do so, her father brought her to tudung store and asked her to choose her own favorite. In other words, Erra eventually wears tudung on her own will and without anyone forcing her to wear it. Not even her grandmother who is a respected fellow in the village. Her grandmother even encouraged her to not wear the tudung unless she really wanted to do so.

“My grandma said there is no point wearing the tudung if you don’t have the courage. Once you wear tudung, you are telling others that you have your own vision and perception about the religion.”

I must say that I agree with Erra. Wearing a tudung is not like wearing another shirt or baju kurung. Apart from adhering to the religious requirement, you are also expressing yourself as someone who has a principle. You believe in what you are and what you are doing. Now let’s take it to another level; if you were wearing a sexy sleeveless shirt and you feel great wearing it, how would you feel if someone else came to you and said you shouldn’t wear that and instead gave you another shirt to wear? I don’t think so. As an adult woman with high self-esteem, you don’t like others to instruct you on what to wear and what not to wear. You will wear anything that makes you feel great and look great. Well, same goes to those who wear tudung. Why would you stop them just because you don’t like seeing them with tudung? Who is overreacting now; those who wear tudung or those who don’t like to see them?

Some even said that when more and more Muslim women are wearing tudung, they are going backwards against the tide. They argued that women should be given some freedom in showing what they want and what they like to wear. Well, I agree with the freedom part and to be honest, that’s what the religion is cheering about too. There shouldn’t be any kind of disparities between men and women. We are all the same in the eye of God Almighty. However, I don’t think that by wearing tudung we are going against the tide as that does not make any sense whatsoever. I wear tudung because I believe in it and I believe that I can discipline myself. I wear tudung as I believe that I could strengthen my faith to God.

In my humble opinion, this whole conversation could be triggered by the fact that fewer debate being conducted about Muslim men. They were seen as not having much restriction from the religion. This is not entirely true. Tudung is a word originated from the actual word “hijab”. Hijab means modesty in lifestyle, hence applies to all Muslim; women and men. Both men and women are supposed to lower their gaze and be modest. Lowering the gaze means that a man should always guard their modesty and therefore should always respect a woman by looking at the woman in a proper manner. What I’m trying to say is when a man sees a woman, he should never look at her to the extent that she would feel uncomfortable.

This is where the environment and the inner circle influences come in. Men, as we all know, tend to dominate in almost everything they touch. They want to take control and be in power and that is the reason why fewer discussions are available to dispute the idea of men and hijab. It’s always about women and hijab and this is absolutely wrong. Just like women, men should always guard their modesty and if both parties do the same thing, I believe that world would be a peace place to live in.

Today we have seen many types of tudung and just like the rapid movement of tudung business, the number of Muslim women in Malaysia wearing tudung has also increased significantly. We can see some women wearing tudung fareeda and some young girls wearing modern tudung ariani. There are also others wearing tudung calista and tudung chiffon. If we go further in shopping malls, there are also some women wearing tudung Donatello or tudung fareeda. I can also see some young modern Muslimah girls wearing tudung jakel and some even try to be a little bit glamorous by wearing tudung siti nurhaliza. No matter what kind of tudung they are wearing, they all look great and fantastic. None of them look “ugly” in my eyes. I define ugly as being someone who bad-mouthing others. That’s what ugly is and not what you wear. You can wear a sexy shirt or skirt but you will still look ugly to me if you don’t know how to respect others and act like an idiot.

Of course when we say that wearing tudung is all about religious action and to protect women from unwanted circumstances, we will also argue that there are other bad influences that should be taken care of as well. Such influences include how the community react to what the woman is wearing. The community should practice open-minded way of life rather than just “talk” about being open-minded. No one should be discriminated simply because of what he or she wears at public.

We have seen this kind of hypocrisy when Susan Boyle came for audition in Britain’s Got Talent. If you have seen the video clip, you will see how many people (including the judges) were so cynical when they look at Susan’s appearance. They thought that Susan is just another laughing stock and the pretense went on when Susan claimed that her dream is to be as famous as Elaine Paige, the great British Musical Theatre singer. Their first impression of that woman diminished instantly when Susan opened her mouth and sang I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables beautifully like a professional singer.

This world is full of hypocrisy and it even exists amongst us. Therefore it is best to withhold ourselves from judging others especially in terms of their appearances. Someone should not be stopped from practicing what he or she believes in; including wearing tudung. Start appreciating others in terms of their intelligence and charisma and I am pretty sure that the world will then be the greatest place to live in.

Salam,
~Alisa Nurhanis

Friday, April 17, 2009

Tudung Bawal Online

One of the most common reasons why Malaysian women are wearing hijab is to ensure that they can fulfill the religious requirement to cover their hair including their ears. They are supposed to show only their face. However some extreme beliefs wanted them to cover their faces as well and leave only their eyes to be seen. These beliefs however are not embraced by most of the Muslim women in Malaysia. In fact, tudung has been receiving a lot of revolutions in terms of the fashion and also the trend here in Malaysia. In short, this scenario is one of the uniqueness of the Muslim community here in Malaysia.

There are many types of tudungs worn by Muslim women in Malaysia. One of them is tudung bawal which is a very popular tudung. Tudung bawal is actually evolving from plain tudung where the tudung has been embroidered with shining curvy lines. The curvy lines are usually flowery designs like batik. When tudung bawal was first introduced, it instantly received high popularity and had taken the tudung industry by storm. Women flocked to tudung market to look for this tudung bawak as it is a far cry better than the plain tudung. Besides being stylish, the tudung bawal is easy to be worn and it doesn’t look too dull neither too fancy.

A lot of variations on how to wear the tudung appropriately can be performed simply by twisting here and there at how you tie the tudung. There are many tudung videos out there tutoring on how to tie your tudung (ranging from tudung bawal, tudung ekin, tudung dubai, or any other types of tudung) and you just have to hop from one to another to gather all the options and later choose your favorite one. You may see that some would choose to wrap it around their head and then leaving just enough of the tudung ends so that they can be tied; creating a delicate and impressive knot. Some would just let the tudung ends to fall gracefully on their shoulders to create a shawl-look.

As I have mentioned few times before, tudung has gone through a lot of revolutions and one of them is the fabrics used to produce attention-grabbing tudungs. Some of the designers’ favorites are georgette, chiffon, velvet, cotton, wool, cashmere, pashmina (fine wool growing beneath the outer hair of goats), polyester, rayon, and also from silk. Of course, amongst those fabrics there is one that is most demanded by women; silk. Since silk somehow has its own way to stroke the skin giving a comfort feeling, they are highly demanded in the tudung market.

Today we can see that there are a lot of tudungs around us. I can only named few of them that are common such as tudung ekin, tudung Dubai, tudung bawal air mata, tudung ariani, tudung hijjaz, tudung munawarah, tudung bawal jepun, tudung manjalara, tudung sutera, and tudung pearl haya. These fashion tudung collections are those that can be easily found in the market and they are “nice and sweet” looking tudungs. Hijab fashion world has also been flooded with ready-made easy-to-wear tudungs. Frankly, I don’t encourage to buy these types of tudungs as they are usually made from cheap materials that could be harmful to those who are allergenic.

Apparently tudung has become one of the most sought after garments in Malaysia. Many tudung manufacturers have taken the initiatives to produce more tudungs that are nice-looking and eventually people started to see tudung as a fashion rather than just a religious requirement. However, since Islam encourages its adherents to live a modest and humble life, the creation of tudung in fashionable manner is restricted so that it does not look too extravagant. This is to ensure that the original purpose of wearing it is not to be confused with catching up with the trend like any other garments. Furthermore, the world’s fashion still does not give tacit approval to the idea of wearing tudung.

Fashion is always revolutionizing its form from time to time. It is an elusive and seductive concept. If you know how to use fashion accordingly and appropriately, you can manipulate the fashion to express yourself in many brilliant ways. It serves as an extension of your own persona and therefore it helps to build up your self-confidence in yourself. In my opinion, it is not the fashion that decides who you are and what you are as fashion is just another platform of expressing yourself. Self-esteem should be gained from developing your skills in socializing with others. Teetotal resort to wearing trendy items all the time is definitely not the right way to heighten your self-esteem to favorable level.

Now if we look into fashion a bit deeper, you might have this perception that designers are the ones who have the greater influence in popularizing any trend. Well, I don’t really think so. In my humble opinion, fashion is driven by the people; those who wear it. There are just so many fashion designs out there that were produced and then never hit the market. Why? Because people don’t wear fancy clothing whilst running their daily errands. People wear shirts and articles that are comfort and unmistakably simple. Fashion only seems to be apposite when we want to go for special occasions yet we only choose something that is not too arresting to avoid unnecessary excessive attractions from the public.

Wearing a regular headscarf is not uncommon amongst women in this world but it lacks what a tudung needs to look like. Of course tudung IS a headscarf but it is not just a headscarf. Designing a tudung is not like designing the regular headscarf. It has to be designed in a way that it could carry out the religious requirement and the same time it accomplishes the fashion needs. If you think about it carefully, you would find that achieving that ultimate goal is not something that is as easy as designing an ordinary headscarf, if you know what I mean.

Some women feel that they shouldn’t look frumpy when they go out in public but some just don’t take it as their main priority. Looking great at all times may be more applicable to artiste (though now we have Susan Boyle who is genuine at heart and a live proof that beauty comes from your heart) or those who meet clients everyday in their daily routines.

At the present day women are more eager to look elegant rather than glamour. Fortunately we have a lot of tudung designers that dedicated their works to producing more and more elegant tudung. By wearing this fashion tudung, not only you will be able to adapt yourself to one of the fashion accessories but at the same time you will be able to fulfill the Islam’s requirement. To be honest, there are also other collateral benefits such as protection from the rain as well as weather.

Being attractive might be one of the modern women’s dreams but at the same time they don’t really put that as their number one precedence. Their main concern is to be noticed and to be well recognized as having the same quality as men. Yes, equality in everything is what they want in this modern world and frankly say, they have work hard (and smart!) to prove that they are as great as men. What’s more, some women at present are more successful than some women could have ever imagined.

In conclusion, there are many ways apart from being a fashion slave to articulate your own self to the world. Avoid superfluous agendas in your life so that you can focus more on improving your capabilities to interact with others and also on your lifestyle. Mix around as much as you can but restrain yourself from bad-mouthing others. In order to be respected by others, you should first build up your rapport by being someone who is humble and modest in every way every angle. It doesn’t mean you have to be prude at all times; be yourself.

If you have missed my previous rantings, you are welcome to read it here at Koleksi Fesyen Tudung Muslimah. Oh yes, another thing that I would like to remind you is be careful when you buy tudung bawal online. You might be cheated with low quality tudung and that is definitely something that you want to happen.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Koleksi Fesyen Tudung Muslimah

I know that this blog is nothing more than just notorious blog hosted by Blogger and owned by a cili padi girl called Alisa Nurhanis. Who the heck is Alisa Nurhanis? Well, she might just be a hot young lady living next your door or a nyonya who had nothing else to do except expressing herself at the online world; counting her last days. Whatever your thought is, I will never disclose who I am or what I am. Of course, the name Alisa Nurhanis depicted here is just my pen name; a name I chose to claim any writings in this very blog.
It is hard to understand why people are just so nosy to know about others. Despite the actual ways of knowing people by greeting people (which was taught by my parents), people chose to gossip around and create baseless stories about me. I just don’t get it. Oh, could this be the newest way of greeting others? I hate Twitter; it is the latest way of badmouthing others. Oh yes, I hate Facebook too (fortunately I just can’t open it at my PC since it took darn so long to load the page).
Excuse my ranting here and I know for fact that you all are coming here to look for tudung collection. Sorry guys, this pretty blog is not just about that. From time to time I will post few articles about current issues that are related to, of course, tudung. I don’t want to restrict this blog with just offers and tudung promotion. Instead, I want to express my feelings and my own tenet to the whole world about tudung; why do we have to wear it, why some countries are having issues with tudung, and so on. In other words, I want to tell the whole world that we are not here to be told what to wear and what to do. We have our own minds and others just have to respect that. Period.
There are many ways to wear tudung. One of the most popular ways to do that is by convoluting the lower ends of the tudung around the neck to overlap the base part and ending it with some creative knots. This trend of wearing tudung is popular amid teenage girls as it looks really cool and furthermore it adds some variation to the tudung itself. Trust me, once you get yourself familiar with these method of wearing tudung, you will find yourself trying new ways everyday of doing it as it is really fun.
Some have managed to make it even more interesting by adding a shawl to cover up the lower part of the tudung. The shawl is put on around the neck too and let loose on both shoulders. You can always try out different shawls and different colors to give the tudung looks more appealing and more variant. Believe me my friends, you will look 10 times prettier with a head scarf than bare head and face (unless you have a beautiful hair to show off, I recommend anyone to try wearing tudung).
It is hard to understand anything that I have said earlier as I am pretty sure that if you haven’t seen someone wearing tudung, you won’t have the right images in your eyes to properly visualize what I said haha. Unfortunately, I don’t have any good pictures at this moment to show you as examples. However, I do have some but warn you though; these tudung pictures and “tudung gambar” is just for your own reference. Nothing more than that.

tudung bawal
Some people said that wearing tudung is compulsory for Muslim women. Some said the other way round. And some said that tudung is only part of applying the modest lifestyle. I prefer the latter explanation and concept.
Think about it, some people (especially Malay men) prefer to confront with women that are not wearing tudung by saying bad things. Most of the time, those words are warnings and intimidations; scaring the women with some stories. Some men even took it to the next level by bombarding the women with bad words. My opinion; just ignore them. Really, just ignore whatever they said. More often than not, they have less knowledge about the religion than you. Why is that? Well, if they do know about what to adhere to and what not, they should never say things to you in the first place.

tudung ekin
Islam is not a scary religion. Not at all and it is not even a religion that is forcing people to do things. If it was, none of the Quraish people would embraced the holy religion when our dearly loved prophet first introduced it to them. Do you know that Quraish people were so arrogant and their life is all about pride? Persuading is a no-no to them.
Unfortunately, men these days failed to practice the same manners shown by our prophet.
Ok, I rather not am going into this too deep. Let’s go back to our little nonsense discussion lol.
In Malaysia, tudung is as popular as wearing just shawl or sunglasses. Sunglasses? Yes, I bet that if you go out there at shopping malls, you will see more people wearing tudung than wearing sunglasses. Of course, they are in shopping malls, why would you wear sunglasses indoor? Well, at least that is true enough since if you check out other hang out places in town, you’ll more than likely to see women with tudung. Some are just wearing plain tudung, some would be wearing tudung ekin, and some would be wearing tudung bawal. A few of them though would be wearing tudung dubai and tudung visor.
If you happen to be in town, you can certainly confirm this scenario. Bring a notebook with you and creatively create your own tudung statistics. What I am trying to say here is tudung is no longer uncommon in Malaysia. Tudung is a fashion here. Wear it properly and nicely and you will be among those that are popular like Ekin or Diana Danielle. The only advice I can give you is don’t try to overdo it. Check out the latest tudung trend and you should find one that really suits you. It is okay to look like part of the crowds than look like a clown. Don’t be a laughing stock to others. Be yourself by choosing colors that suits you. Match the tudung with your garments in terms of the color and the code as well.
I have seen few girls wearing tudung with pair of jeans. I think I have no problems with that as long as they are showing the interest to wear tudung. Sometimes I think they look with that kind of attires.
That pretty much sum up our discussion for today. We’ll continue next time with more offers and articles about fashion tudung collection. If you happen to see me out there, you might be able to recognize me hehe but please do not be shilly-shally to say hi to me ok?
See you folks!
Updated on May 2009 : If you are interested to read articles about tudung in Malay language, you may also visit this article at Koleksi fesyen tudung online.
Updated on April 2013: Shopping for tudung is fun but why not take some time to listen to some music too? Feed your soul with good music and short stories like at Rembau Most Wanted.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Tudung Ekin Collection

Though I have explained and elaborated a full two or three pages about tudung ekin, still some emailed me and asked about it. Some even asked me about where to get tudung ekin but since I haven’t decided which tudung seller I should refer. In fact, I am still collecting some information about tudung ekin and which seller has the best reputation that I can send my readers to. Therefore here I decided again to explain more about tudung ekin.

Despite its name, the tudung is not actually belongs to Ekin and in fact it is not its real name. Before Ekin came to public with that tudung, it is more appropriately being called tudung awning. The tudung received such a subtle name due to the inner side of the tudung which creates shade on the forehead (just like any other ordinary cap). The awning-like shape makes it logical to name the tudung as tudung awning. However, since Ekin is a popular (are you sure?) actress in Malaysia and she was the first celebrity to wear the tudung awning, the tudung received instant popularity too. Many women who were not familiar with the tudung’s name would go shopping for the tudung and the only to let the tudung seller knows what kind of tudung that they are looking for is by referring to the tudung that Ekin wore. Eventually many tudung sellers realized that the tudung is so much sought after by women, so they changed the name to Tudung Ekin.

Yet, I didn’t even know who Ekin is until recently haha.

For those who don’t know who Ekin is, let me just do a brief introduction about her. Ekin is an actress who had starred in many television shows. She wasn’t that popular until the day she dated a star who became popular from a singing competition in Malaysia called Akademi Fantasia. The star I was referring to is Mawi. Mawi has his own group of fans and apparently the group is so huge that many noticed that he had been dating Ekin. Ekin’s name were mentioned in many blogs and celebrities sites on the net and from there on, her name became more and more popular. Apart from dating Mawi, she later became popular with the tudung fashion that she wears which is now fondly known as tudung ekin.

Now what actually makes tudung ekin so popular?

Previously it is common to see women wearing plain tudung and some managed to wear tudung bawal. Tudung bawal became slightly popular than plain tudung since it is embroidered with curvy lines and flourish patterns. When tudung ekin entered the market, it received such popularity since it looks really nice on the wearer and somehow the fashion looks kinda up-to-date. Furthermore, when tudung ekin was worn by Ekin, the tudung, again, received another recognition and therefore women flocked to tudung stores to find tudung ekin.

Till today, women still looking for tudung ekin. The trend continues…

Despite the tudung being so easy to be made on your own, you can actually go to stores and find out that some of them had changed and some even managed to “come out” from the original version of tudung ekin. Some of new version of tudung ekin are combination of the original tudung ekin and tudung bawal. Therefore the tudung has a shape like tudung ekin but instead of being plain cloth, they have decorated the tudung with some patterns stitched on them. I call this as creative approach to further make tudung ekin a better choice for modern Muslim women.

Modern Muslim women love changes and they love to make more and more good changes in their life. They constantly look for changes in how they look and how the world is looking at them. This is what we want. We want them to inspire the whole world and who knows in the future the world top fashion designers will start designing better tudung or hijab for Muslim women. And who knows, Gucci will take tudung ekin to the next level?

Monday, April 6, 2009

Tudung Ekin

When I first mentioned about “tudung ekin” in my first post here at tudung collection, I mentioned that I had no idea who the heck Ekin was until one of my readers pointed out that Ekin is a popular local singer who is now married to another popular singer called Mawi who came out from a popular reality show in Malaysia. How idiot I was haha. However, I am still not convinced that the tudung was first introduced by Ekin but rather popularized by her. Despite all the popularity that she gained when she first dated Mawi, she had gained her own popularity from wearing a nice looking tudung and thus the tudung received an “honor’ by being named after her name, Ekin. “Ekin” herself may not realized at first that she would receive such an honor for having a tudung being named after her name yet the way she wore it is the main reason why the tudung is now so popular.

If you take a look at the tudung itself you won’t see anything that is so special about it. When tudung ekin was first produced, there are only few colors available and the first batch only consists of plain colors and plain cloth. So when Ekin first appeared with the so-called tudung ekin, almost everyone of her die-hard fans were surprised; as she didn’t wear tudung previously and not because of the tudung. Nevertheless, the news about Ekin wearing the tudung became hot almost instantly and was spread across the nation within few days up to few weeks and eventually the tudung gains its own instant popularity. I don't want to further argue whichever is first; this is just like guessing whichever is first chicken or egg.

Some geniuses amongst tudung sellers decided to name the tudung after her name and therefore the tudung received its unofficial name; Tudung Ekin. Many have taken the advantages of the tudung’s popularity by producing more and more attractive tudung and claimed that the tudung is tdung ekin. Yes, I am not saying here that the tudung belongs to her haha. What tickles me most is when some people imprudently named the tudung as Tudung Mawi; which is just absurd. Mawi is a man and obviously he doesn’t wear tudung. Even if you argue that Arabian men wear tudung or more appropriately called hijab, Mawi blatantly won’t wear such tudung. However, for the sake of this discussion, I will sometimes refer to tudung ekin as tudung mawi; simply to pleasure all of this tudung blog readers.

Tudung ekin can be separated to two different parts; the inner part and the outer cloth. The inner part of tudung ekin is usually made from a piece of cloth which is shaped like an arc of “half moon”and then pasted and ironed with (or without) harder material to strengthen the shape. The outer part of tudung ekin on the other hand is made from a larger piece of cloth. You can learn how to make tudung ekin if you google for “cara-cara buat tudung ekin” or belajar buat tudung ekin. I can be almost certain that it is quite easy to create tudung ekin.

The inner part of tudung ekin is actually the main criteria of this tudung since it is the one that shape up the whole tudung. It acts as an “awning” as it provides shades to the forehead; creating an awning-like shape. I have seen these types of tudung in the past but I was too idiot to name it as “Tudung Ekin”; if not I will be rich by now lol. Anyway today there are a lot of variations to tudung ekin and you can easily get the low cost or “tudung ekin murah” at pasar malam. In my opinion, rather than getting a low cost tudung ekin at only RM10, why not create the tudung on your own as you can choose your own material; whichever suit your needs and whichever makes you comfortable to be worn.

Tudung Ekin has received a lot of attention until some tudung manufacturers decided to produce more and more quality tudung. Calista, for instance, have made the effort to come out with excellent set of tudung ekin for you to choose from. Not to promote anything here but I can assure you that tudung ekin produced by the company is high in quality; the choice of cloth as well as how they sew them. Furthermore, the materials are good for any type of skin thus making the tudung ekin not hot to be worn for active Muslimah women.

How to Make Tudung Ekin (Bagaimana Buat Tudung Ekin)

In order for you to start making tudung ekin you need to have these materials; a pair of scissors, a pen or a pencil, some needles, interfacing (kain bergam), a piece of cloth for the inner part, and a piece of cloth for the main body. You can choose any materials for the main body part; either silk, thai silk, brocade, songket, cotton, or whatsoever as long as that material is what you think as the most comfortable for you.

Now we can begin our fist process to “buat tudung Ekin” by cutting down a piece of cloth to a circle shape; this is the process of making the awning shape. In order to do so, you can start by drawing the shape first on cardboard and later cut it accordingly. Hell yeah, if I have a pencil, can I just draw the circle on the cloth? Yes you may dear. If this is your first time doing this DIY hand-sewn tudung, then do it the idiot way; you won’t get anywhere wrong. If you are an expert, you won’t be reading this, don’t you? Sorry, I don’t think I am being harsh here or trying to insult your intelligence.

Ok, now we have the circle shape. Then take the interfacing cloth ( the cloth is sticky at one side and it will stick to the cloth when we iron it) and cut it to create an arc shape cloth. Put it on the circle shape cloth and then fold the circle shape cloth to cover the arc-shaped cloth. Pin them with some needles. Then you can start to iron it. If you realize, we have to make the circle-shaped cloth to be slightly bigger than the arc-shaped interfacing cloth so that after we ironed it, we can easily sew it.

The rest of the process to make tudung ekin is self-explanatory. If you are too lazy to make one of your own but you think you can make one, you can also buy a plain tudung and then you can just create the awning part and stitch it down to the tudung. If your name is Mila, you can name the tudung as Tudung Mila. If your name is Diana Danielle, why not naming the tudung as Tudung Diana Danielle? Who knows you will be popular one day and people will actually call the tudung after your name Diana Danielle? Haha I’m just kidding anyway.

I hope you have learned your lesson today. I am sure that tudung ekni will remain to be one of the most popular and glamorous tudung these days but my main concern is that we are not supposed to forget the main reason to wear tudung apart from following the herd; which is to adhere to syaria’. Hey by the way if you are interested in knowing about tudung bawal, you are welcome to visit my tudung bawal article.

Cheers,

~Lis bukan Ekin.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Tudung Bawal Collection

Why do Muslim women wear tudung? This is perhaps one of the most frequently asked questions by some whenever they see Muslim women wearing one. The quickest answer usually is because to adhere to religion’s needs but rarely answered that the tudung is just a fashion. Some even don’t know why they would want to wear tudung or hijab and from that we can conclude that some of them are just following the herd without trying to understand the reasons to wear tudung. In my humble opinion, it is a shame when a women doesn’t know why she wears a tudung as I believe that a woman should always know why they want something and why they do something. However, that is just based on my assumptions on my own experience of interacting with other women. Whatever your judgments are on tudung, I would like to remind you that wearing tudung is not some kind of cult or anything but rather an honor for the Muslim women to wear them to protect themselves from any unwanted situations.

These days there are a lot of tudung variations and from what I learned, the most sought after tudung is tudung bawal. If you are not that sure what does it mean by "tudung bawal", you can read my previous post about variations of tudung including tudung bawal. Tudung bawal is famous for its softness which is what most women want whenever they wear tudung. Softness means that the tudung bawal is going to provide high level of comfort and comfort is all that a woman wants; from head to toe.

Some women wear tudung bawal just for fun and since tudung bawal is one of the most comfortable tudungs, it becomes the first choice for that single purpose. Furthermore, tudung bawal is quite easy to wear as there are only few simple knots to apply. However, I have also received some news from my close friends informing me that teenagers these days are more interested in finding “tudung ekin” than tudung bawal. We will discuss more about tudung ekin in future post but at this moment we will tackle few issues about tudung bawal.

What does it mean actually by tudung bawal? Straight-forward definition would translate the meaning as the pomfret-fish scarf. I believe that it received that name due to its folded-shape which is diamond-like or more of resembling the fish; the silver pomfret. However, the meaning does not help at all in identifying which tudung is tudung bawal and which are not.

One common feature of tudung bawal is the flourish decoration embroidered on the tudung surface. The flourish designs are usually embroidered at the tudung edges taking up quite a large space. Since Islam prohibited designs or images of animals on garments, these embroideries are usually consists of ornamented flowers with curvy and sweeping lines. Some tudung bawal are embroidered with the flourish patterns all the way along the edges which proves to be easier for some tudung wearers to fold it and wear it the way that they wanted.

Malay calls this embroidery as “kerawang” as the kerawang is part of tudung bawal itself rather than being stitched on the tudung bawal. So when you see tudung bawal sulam kerawang or tudung bawal kerawang, it means that the tudung is embroidered with the flourish designs. I don’t think that you can find tudung bawal with animal patterns since Islam discourage these kind of decorations. Furthermore, I do think that flourish designs are much better than animal designs as I find it beautiful whenever there are curves and swishes on the tudung bawal. Some kerawang(s) have different colors than the tudung which added more color varieties to the tudung bawal itself and therefore makes the tudung bawal looks more appealing. If you know the right way to wear the tudung bawal, I can assure you that you will look amazing with tudung bawal.

There are a lot of colors when it comes to purchase tudung bawal kerawang and my tenet is the best colors are pink tudung bawal, white tudung bawal, black tudung bawal with diamond-like kerawang, red tudung bawal, and also grey tudung bawal. What I’m trying to say here is these colors are easy to be matched with your other garments and since the “kerawang’ is usually shining, you can create an eye-catching manifestation whenever you wear one.

Some of these tudungs are also decorated with an array of “oktant” which are small shiny beads. These octants are designed and added to the scarf to make it more appealing and more attention-grabbing. Some women dislike these kinds of decoration as they look a bit hefty. Some women even mentioned that these types of decorations on tudung bawal will only turn the scarf to be more suitable for older women. Well, I have no comments on this view but I don’t mind wearing one that is modest in everything including the color, the numbers of the swish lines, and also I don’t mind having a few shining materials there. I believe that the lesser decorations there, the more appealing it will be.

As I have mentioned earlier, tudung bawal is popular since they are usually made from silk or cotton clothing which made them significantly comfort to the head and hair. You don’t feel too hot when wearing them and if you are working outdoors, tudung bawal might be your best bet. Additionally, the tudung bawal is quite easy to be worn and if you are quite new at wearing tudung, you can easily adapt the feelings of wearing tudung with tudung bawal.

Where can you get tudung bawal? Well, currently there are a lot of tudung bawal sellers out there that are actively selling this type of tudungs. One of my colleagues are getting them from east coast of Malaysia, Kelantan. According to some of the customers, tudung bawal from Kelantan are one of the best tudung bawal collection. There are many choices and patterns of this tudung from Kelantan. However, I am not that fond with the Kelantan tudung as I don’t find it quite interesting in terms of the tudung colors and the kerawang. Still, if you are interested, you can always order this tudung bawal from Kelantan either online or can just shop out there.

When you buy tudung bawal, please ensure few things including the price. Some sellers are selling them at overpriced tag and they usually give absurd excuses like it is hard to get that kind of tudung bawal and so on. You can always verify this by going to few tudung stores and you should be able to know the approximate price of tudung bawal. As long as you take this precaution methods when buying tudung bawal, you should be able to get nice tudung bawal and later enjoy wearing it with comfort and ease. Oh yes, for more information about Tudung Ekin, you may check it out here at Tudung Ekin Collection.

Happy shopping!

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Fashion Tudung Collection

For centuries Muslim women have been wearing head cover which is affectionately known as hijab. The word “hijab” itself however does not specifically refer to the head cover. It refers to modest clothing and dress for female. In Malaysia, hijab is known as “tudung” and usually regards to only the head scarf. Tudung has been part of Muslim women in Malaysia for decades and it has since evolved in terms of its fashion; following the current trend and demand.

Since the day of Malacca where the Islam religion had first came to Tanah Melayu (former name of Malaysia consisting Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapura, and Brunei) centuries ago, Muslim women had been wearing the unique dress tudung for many purposes. Some wear it to symbolize their belief in the religion and some wear it to protect themselves from unwanted circumstances. However, as the year passed by and Malaysia has now become one of the most developing countries in Asia, tudung has gone through a lot of improvements and these days we can see a lot of variations; either on the fashion of the tudung itself or how they wear the tudung and fashioned it to match with their modern attire.

There are many reasons why I first started this tudung blog. First of all, I have seen a lot of people setup their tudug businesses online in order to reach customers from the whole nation. Some even have bigger ambitions by promoting the tudung business to the whole world. Unfortunately, due to lack of knowledge on how to promote the business online, most of them reverted back to their old-fashioned and conventional ways of promoting business; which is offline.

In order to promote the tudung business online successfully, you shouldn’t totally rely on the products you have. Just like promoting your business out there, online marketing has its own way to penetrate the industry’s potential in luring the customers to purchase your product. Relying on your products only won’t bring you anywhere.

I am fully aware that it is hard to learn exactly how to market your tudung product online. I know that you guys have your own businesses and you prefer to concentrate on manufacturing or selling your products instead of learning how to sell your tudung online. You just don’t have the time to promote your business online and subsequently led you to believe that it is not worth it to promote tudung onine. Therefore, I am taking this responsibility (more like an opportunity to me lol) to help you guys to promote the tudung business and ensure that the benefits go to all of you.

For those who have no idea whatsoever what is this blog all about, don’t worry. I’m about to tell you about it.

I have been working in the tudung industry for quite some time. Back in 1990, I worked at a local tailor shop located in my village (somewhere in the suburban area of Kedah) as an assistant. I helped my employer tailoring “baju kurung” for the locals. “Baju kurung” is Malay’s traditional dress for women (though it is common these days to see men on TV wearing baju kurung, for instance Saiful Apek wearing baju kurung in one of the comedy movies he acted). My employer (I barely remember her name, isn’t it ironic when you hardly remember someone who significantly changed your life?) is a hardworking person and I loved to see her working days and nights to complete all the orders. One day she realized that instead of just tailoring baju kurung, why not make some tudungs? So she took the effort by tailoring a few first and from there on, villagers went to her shop to order one whole set of attire; baju kurung and tudung.

I worked with her for two years before I decided to try my luck at Kuala Lumpur (KL), the capital city of Malaysia. I worked at several tudung shops scattered all over KL. Along that timeless period, I have learned many things about tudung. I have learned the variations such as tudung bawal, tudung labuh, and so on. Don’t worry, we will go into details on all sorts of tudungs.

My point is, I know almost everything about tudung. No, I’m not trying to brag here nor do I want to impress you with anything. My original attention is to help tudung makers to efficiently promote tudung online as I believe that this business is currently blooming and furthermore, more Malaysians have adapted the concept of buying stuffs online. Since tudung is one of the most sought after items on the net (for Malaysians at least), I would like to take the challenge to direct the whole tudung industry towards better future. If we can make this dream comes true, I have no doubt that one day tudung busness will receive more exposure and receive recognition from the whole world.

I may not be able to provide you with everything I know about tudung. I may not have all the information that you want about tudung as I believe that there are also others out there who have their own experiences about tudung. If you do know anything about tudung that is not covered in this humble blog of mine, then please do not hesitate at all to contact me (either by email or just leave your comment in any post) and I will be more than happy to update those information in this tudung blog.

Ok, let’s go back to business. As I have mentioned previously, there are a lot of tudung variations. Below is the list of the tudungs (not exhaustive though, just to provide you with the basic idea);

Tudung bawal - bawal refers to a marine fish (silver pomfret) and the tudung bawla shape resembles the fish.

Tudung songket - songket is a fabric belongs to the brocade family of textiles.

Tudung sutera - silk tudung.

Tudung awning - the tudung has a cap-like shape that will shade the forehead of the tudung wearer.

Tudung ekin - who the heck is ekin?

Tudung dubai - the tudung may not neccessarily came from Dubai.

Tudung ariani - again, I am not sure who ariani is.

Tudung erra - Erra Fazira does not ware tudung therefore the name might be coined by some genius marketers.

Tudung siti - Siti Sarah does not wear tedung, so it must be Siti Nurhaliza's tudung.

Tudung kerawang tebuk - long-forgotten skills are needed to make this type of tudung.

Tudung sulam tangan - again, exceptional skills are required to make this tudung.

There are others and we will try to cover each and every tudung available in Malaysia.

I hope that my so-called “unprecedented” effort here to compile tudung details and its variation will receive positive feedback from all of you. There might be some flaws here and there. If you do find one, please inform me so I can correct it immediately.

I am actually quite impressed with some of our local tudung entrepreneurs where they have taken the initiatives to promote their businesses online. I had the chances to see few of their tudung collection and I can assure you that some of tudung creators really are creative people. From time to time I will include interviews with tudugn creators so others can share their stories and later motivate ourselves to improve further in this tudung business.

I am pretty sure that some of you might think; what is so special about tudung? Why tudung? Why not baju kurung? Or any other pakaian traditional? The answer lies in the evolution of the tudung creation itself. From only fulfilling the religion’s requirement, Muslimah (Muslim women) have been wearing them for fashion purposes too. There are a lot of variations on how to wear them and honestly, some of the techniques to “pakai tudung” are quite impressive to the extent that sometimes the wearer looks prettier with tudung.

Many men have claimed the same thing about women wearing tudung. It is common to hear all these expressions whenever men saw women with tudung;

“Wah! Anggunnya gadis tu. Nampak manis dan alim…”

“Aduh…jatuh cinta pandang pertama aku dengan minah tudung ni…”

“OMG…did you see that girl? The one with the hijab? She is darn gorgeous!”

“Kalaulah awek tudung ni awek aku…perggh!!!”

I am so sorry if you couldn’t understand few of the expressions I used above. Those are in Malay language and they mainly refer to how impress they are whenever they see women with tudung walk nearby them.

Today it is common to see girls wearing tudungs to schools, offices, and even while shopping. There are a lot of colors and patterns; red tudung, green tudung, tudung oren, striped tudung, visor tudung, and the list goes on and on. There are also numerous ways to knot the tudung and sometimes the knots are the principles behind great-looking tudung.

It will be a shame if none of Malaysian celebrities wear tudung. In fact, some of the celebrities are the persons responsible in popularizing tudung wear. Our famous singer, Datuk Siti Nurhaliza is responsible to popularize the hood-like tudung. There are also other artiste who had made the wearing of tudung even more popular and glamour these days.

Updated on Apr 2009: You are welcome to read my review on tudung bawal and what does it really means by tudung abwal. The review is also discussing on why is tudung bawal is so popular these days amongst women especially amongst teens.

Updated on May 2009 : If you are interested in tudung articles that are written in Malay, you may visit this article at Koleksi Fesyen Tudung Online.

Updated on Dec 2014: If you wonder why tudung muslimah is sold millions on the net, you should also check out the great Custom Baju T-shirt Printing in Malaysia.

Tudung Online Survey

The form below is optional for you to fill up as it is a survey we conduct in order to let us know what are your wants and needs. Please feel free to join the tudung survey.
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