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.