Ladies Party Dress

Most ladies want all the people to keep their eyes on them. So in the wedding ceremony she tries to make their dress different from the others, and prettier than the others does. Sometimes they want to dress like the super star. So to be pretty you have to find out which dress style below that suitable with you.

Khmer Ladies

Khmer Traditional Dress

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Cambodian Silk Cloth

Cambodia is world renowned for its exquisite Silks, much of which is still traditionally hand-woven and dyed using natural colors from plants and minerals. These exquisite cloths pictured below are often worn during weddings, Traditional Celebrations and the more elaborate variety, during Classical Khmer Dance Performances.
Pictured above, are absolutely gorgeous Cambodian Silk Kabens or Sampots, pronounced ‘SUM-POT!’ by Cambodians, these cloths are a common sight throughout modern Cambodia and historically, in Cambodian Culture.
The traditional Kaben or Sampot fabric (silk and/or cotton combination) are tremendously comfortable and, extremely flexible; they can be worn as stylish traditional dress or casually worn for more practical use (e.g. work, home & beach). The Kaben or Sampot refer to the size of the cloth, Kaben's are generally 2x as large as a Sampot.

History of Khmer Wedding

In Khmer wedding, it has a lot of ceremonies held in chronological orders. They show the historical roots related to the Buddha’s period which existed ages ago. According to a book “Khmer Wedding Rules” of Oknha Nov, it puts that in ancient Khmer wedding laws, people perform a song describing God Vesandor Borom Pothisat arranging the marriage between his children – Chealy and Kroesna. And some other songs are about the marriage arrangement of God Ream and Seda. Oknha Nov wrote that the current wedding preparations are arranged according to the rules drawn up by King Preah Chey Chesda Thebdey. According to the king’s book, it puts that all ceremonies in Khmer wedding are related to mythical stories such as a story “Som Sla Kanseng”. It is told that there were two men who went to feed their buffalos in the field would like to make friends with each other and wanted to be relative by marriage with each other because one had a son and the other had a daughter. In order to prove their words, they ask for betel nuts packed in krama from each other to show their promise that their children would marry to each other. Another story is “the three betel flowers”. It describes that there were four men who had different skills – swimming, shooting, fortune telling, and magic. After completing their study, they returned home. Along the way back near a stream, the fortune teller said that day they were going to meet a girl and become their wife. Then a big bird swooped down on a girl, Khemry, who was having a bath. Right away the shooting man took his bow and shot the bird down back to the stream. The swimmer then swam to bring her to the ground but she was just dead. After that the magic man helped her be alive again. All four men felt in love with the lad, so they were judged by the Buddha that she would become a wife of someone who swam to help her because he was able to touch her body first. And the fortune teller, magic man, and shooting man would become the father, mother, and brother respectively. Since then in all weddings, the bride and the groom must have three betel flowers in order to show gratitude towards their parents and brothers/sisters.

Setting-the-date ceremony and the groom holding the scarf are told that Prince Thaong was married to Princess Tevtey, a daughter of the sea dragon king. After setting the date already, Tevtey had to bring him to her father at dragon world, so the sea dragon’s daughter asked the prince to hold her scarf in order to dive into the dragon world. In the meanwhile, the dragon king commanded his man to kill the prince at the gate in order to test the prince’s ability. But the daughter had known this; hence, she disguised herself as the prince by changing her skirt and it was put on the prince instead so that the killer was not able to kill the prince. That is why in the current Khmer wedding it was seen that there is clothes change between the groom and the bride, and the groom holding the bride’s scarf in to the room, accompanied by “Phat Cheay and Neang Neak” songs, etc.The ceremony called “Chey Haong Sousdey Haong Men Haong” in wedding ceremony performed until now is followed by an ancient story recorded in “the rules of wedding” book. It describes that Once upon a time there were two brothers – Chey and Sousdey. At that time, there was no king to continue after the previous king had died in Cambodia, so the officials in the palace relied on the holy elephant and horse to find a man to be their king. Then the animals approached the brothers’ house. Consequently, they knew that one of the brothers was the suitable man to be crowned. Chey became the king and Sousdey became his assistant at the same time. When crowned, the people whooped to bless the king. They said “Chey Haong Sousdey Haong Men Haong” simultaneously. The blessing is adapted to use in the wedding until now. “Bongvil Popil” ceremony in the Khmer wedding is also written in “collective Khmer legends” book, volume 9. According to the legend, it is told that once upon a time, there was a man named Chey Sorya who had completed the magic training already from Eyso God, so he asked the God for a sacred relic as a blessing tool for the weddings of human being. Then the God gave the man a replica of his penis and a replica of his wife’s vagina as the blessing tools to spread their reputation in the world. Eyso God took diamond sand from the universe to make a gold banyan leaf representing his wife’s vagina and took a diamond rock from Himalaya Mountain to make a candle representing his penis and supposed them to be “two blessings”. He then told the man to take the candle wrapped in the banyan leaf to circle three times around grooms and brides in order to inhale the smoke making them powerful. The “Popil” ceremony is believed to bring harmony and joyfulness for the new couples making them successful in all challenges. Since Khmer people firmly and sincerely believe in “Popil”, it is performed not only in wedding ceremony but also in other ceremonies such as housewarming, birthday, etc.“holding a sword” tradition in the wedding progress is also told that once upon a time there was a high ranking knight in Peareansey Palace, who fell in love with a daughter of the villager and deposit a piece of gold as a dowry and promised to marry in three months’ time. Three years had gone, so she was married to her neighbor villager but on the wedding day, the knight appeared and took out his sword and killed the man who was the groom. Then the chief clergyman had prayed to dismiss all bad things at the place. The clergyman had analyzed on the power of the sword. That is why people use a sword in the wedding when the bride and the groom are in pair for blessing.

Tradition on Khmer Wedding Season

Wedding ceremony is very meaningful for each of individual’s life who follows their tradition and the laws of the country. That is why this ceremony is carefully dealt with concerning to choosing the date which is believed to bring luck and harmony for the people’s lives and starting a new families. Some families do not allow their children to marry in the rain season and some delay it for two years after the engagement ceremony because of the fortune telling.
According to Mr. Nhean Phoeun, a researcher and publisher of Khmer tradition of national and international festival committee, he said that Khmer tradition allows people to marry only in a period of six months in a year but not the other six. Wedding can be carried out only in the 30-day months. Those six months could be in early May, July, October, January, and March. But for engagement ceremony and matching the natural chemistry between son and daughter, they could be performed in any month.
He continued that for the above months, there are only 7 days of each month that are good days. According to the Khmer tradition, they should not perform on their birthday, religious day, lunar or and solar eclipse, and during Khmer new years.
Actually, the reason people do not get married in the rain season is that there are a lot of rains that make it difficult for the wedding reception, procession, and other ceremonies. It is also difficult for the guests travelling to wedding party and it is when farmers are busy with their fields.

Khmer People

Ethnic Composition
The population of Cambodia today is about 10 million. About 90-95 percent of the people are Khmer ethnic. The remaining 5-10 percent include Chinese-Khmers, Khmer Islam or Chams, ethnic hill-tribe people, known as the Khmer Loeu, and Vietnamese. About 10 percent of the population lives in Phnom Penh, the capital, making Cambodia largely a country of rural dwellers, farmers and artisans.
The ethnic groups that constitute Cambodian society possess a number of economic and demographic commonalties- for example. Chinese merchants lived mainly in urban centers and play middlemen in many economic cycles, but they also preserve differences in their social and cultural institutions. They were concentrated mostly in central and in southeastern Cambodia, the major differences among these groups lie in social organization, language, and religion. The majority of the inhabitants of Cambodia are settled in fairly permanent villages near the major bodies of water in the Tonle Sap Basin-Mekong Lowlands region. The Khmer Loeu live in widely scattered villages that are abandoned when the cultivated land in the vicinity is exhausted. The permanently settled Khmer and Cham villages usually located on or near the banks of a river or other bodies of water. Cham villages usually are made up almost entirely of Cham, but Khmer villages, especially in central and in southeastern of Cambodia, typically include sizable Chinese communities.

The Khmer Loeu
The Khmer Loeu are the non-Khmer highland tribes in Cambodia. The Khmer Loeu are found namely in the northeastern provinces of Rattanakiri, Stung Treng, Mondulkiri and Crate. Most Khmer Loeu live in scattered temporary villages that have only a few hundred inhabitants. These villages usually are governed by a council of local elders or by a village headman. The Khmer Loeu cultivate a wide variety of plants, but the man crop is dry or upland rice growth by the slash-and-burn method. Hunting, fishing, and gathering supplement the cultivated vegetable foods in the Khmer Loeu diet. Houses vary from huge multi-family long houses to small single family structures. They may be built close to the ground or on stilts. The major Khmer Loeu groups in Cambodia are the Kuy, Phnong, Brao, Jarai, and Rade. All but about 160,000 Kuy lived in the northern Cambodia provinces of Kampong Thom, Preah Vihear, and Stoeng as well as in adjacent Thailand.

The Cham
The Cham people in Cambodia descend from refugees of the Kingdom of Champa, which one ruled much of Vietnam between Gao Ha in the north and Bien Hao in the south. The Cambodian Chams are divided into two groups, the orthodox and the traditional- base on their religious practices. The orthodox group, which make up about one-third of the total number of Chams in the country, were located mainly in Phnom Penh - Oudong area and in the provinces of Takeo and Kapot. The traditional Chams were scattered throughout the midsection of the country in the provinces of Battambang, Kompong Thom, Kompong Cham, and Pursat. The Chams of both groups typically live in villages inhabited only by other Chams; the villages may be along the shores of watercourses, or they may be inland. The inhabitants of the river villages engage in fishing and growing vegetables. They trade fish to local Khmer for rice. The women in these villages earn money by weaving. The Chams who live inland support themselves by various means, depending on the villages. Some villages specialize in metalworking; others raise fruit trees or vegetables. The Chams also often serve as butchers of cattle for their Khmer Buddhist neighbors and are, in some areas, regarded as skillful water buffalo and ram breeders.

The Chinese
The Chinese in Cambodia formed the country es largest ethnic minority. Sixty percent of the Chinese were urban dwellers engaged mainly in commerce; the other 40 percent were rural residents working as shopkeepers, as buyers and processors of rice, palm sugar, fruit, and fish, and as money lenders. It is estimated that 90 percent of the Chinese in Cambodia were in commerce and that 92 percent of those involved in commerce in Cambodia were Chinese. In rural Cambodia, the Chinese were moneylenders, and they wielded considerable economic power over the ethnic Khmer peasants through usury. The Chinese in Cambodia represented five major linguistic groups, the largest of which was the Teochiu (accounting about 60 percent), followed by the Cantonese (accounting about 20 percent), the Hokkien (accounting about 7 percent), and the Hakka and the Hainanese (each accounting for 4 percent). Those belonging to the certain Chinese linguistic groups in Cambodia tended to gravitate to certain occupations. The Teochiu, who make up about 90 percent of the rural Chinese population, ran village stores, control rural credit and rice marketing facilities, and grew vegetables. In urban areas they were often engaged in such enterprises as the import-export business, the sale of pharmaceuticals, and street peddling. The Cantonese, who were the majority of Chinese groups before Teochiu migrations began in the late 1930s, live mainly in the city. Typically, the Cantonese engages in transportation and in constriction, for the most part as mechanics or carpenters. The Hokkien community was involved import-export and in banking, and it included some of the countryfs richest Chinese. The Hainanese started out as pepper growers in Kompot Province, where they continued to dominate that business. Many moved to Phnom Penh , where, in the late 1960s, they reportedly had virtual monopoly on the hotel and restaurant business. They also often operated tailor shops. In Phnom Penh, the newly arrived Hakka were typically folk dentists, sellers of traditional Chinese medicines, and shoemakers.

The Vietnamese
The Vietnamese community is scattered throughout southeastern and central Cambodia. They were concentrated in Phnom Penh, and in Kandal, Prey Veng, and Kampong Cham provinces. No close cultural or religious ties exist between Cambodia and Vietnam. The Vietnamese fall within the Chinese culture sphere, rather within the Indian, where the Thai and Khmer belong. The Vietnamese differ from the Khmer in mode of dress, in kinship organization, and in many other ways- for example the Vietnamese are Mahayama Buddhists while most of the Cambodians are Theravada Buddhists. Although Vietnamese lived in urban centers such as Phnom Penh, a substantial number lived along the lower Mekong and Bassac rivers as well as on the shores of the Tonle Sap, where they engaged in fishing.

Kroma - Khmer Scarf

Most Cambodians dress up casually except when they are attending formal events. It is common to see men and women using Krama, a Long, Narrow checked cotton cloth round their neck. The krama is just like a piece of clothe. Lightweight, loose-fitting, cotton clothing is recommended and long-sleeved items should be included for protection from mosquitoes and the sun. During the rainy season an umbrella is more convenient than a rain coast. A jacket may be needed in hotels and restaurants using excessive air-conditioning.
Beneath the warm Cambodian sun, a person's productivity relies heavily upon the suitability of one's dress. Since little is accomplished in blisteringly hot clothes, Khmer people for generations have tied kromas around their waists to work and play in cool comfort. The Khmer scarf, woven from cotton or silk, has been a fashion staple since Ancient times. While some claim the thin cloth, wrapped around one's head or neck, is used primarily to wipe the sweat from a hot face, others say wearing a kroma is as 'Khmer' as wearing a necktie is American.Srey Yar Savdy, head of the Buddhist Institute's Mores and Tradition Department in Phnom Penh said that the kroma has had a home in Cambodia since the first century reign of Preah Bath Hun Tean. It is not clear when exactly the kroma hit the streets, but it has been a symbol of the Khmer kingdom and its people ever since.
"Nowadays, people are more particular and they like to have some quality instead of the less expensive kroma they used to use," said Channavy, the co-manager of a small weaving business. She said the demands of discerning customers have compelled her to prepare her loom with greater care in order to meticulously spin the cotton thread into a bobbin.

Overview of Cambodian Buddhism

Theravada Buddhism is the religion of virtually all of the ethnic Khmers, who constitute about 90% or more of the Cambodian population. Buddhism originated in what are now north India and Nepal during the sixth century B.C. Theravada Buddhism is a tolerant, non-prescriptive religion that does not require belief in a supreme being. Its precepts require that each individual take each individual take full responsibility for his own actions and omissions.
Buddhism is based on three concepts: dharma (the doctrine of the Buddha, his guide to right actions and belief); karma (the belief that one's life now and in future lives depends upon one's own deeds and misdeeds and that as an individual one is responsible for, and rewarded on the basis of, the sum total of one's acts and act's incarnations past and present); and sangha, the ascetic community within which man can improve his karma. The Buddhist salvation is nirvana, a final extinction of one's self. Nirvana may be attained by achieving good karma through earning much merit and avoiding misdeeds.
A Buddhist's pilgrimage through existence is a constant attempt to distance himself or herself from the world and finally to achieve complete detachment, or nirvana. The fundamentals of Buddhist doctrine are the Four Noble Truths: suffering exits; craving (or desire) is the cause of suffering; release from suffering can be achieved by stopping all desire; and enlightenment –
Bddhahood – can be attained by following the Noble Eightfold Path (right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration), which constitutes a middle way between sensuality and ascetism. Enlightenment consists of knowing these truths. The average layperson cannot hope for nirvana after the end of this life, but can by complying, as best he or she is able to, with the doctrine's rules of moral conduct-hope to improve his or her karma and thereby better his condition in the next incarnation.

Khmer Dance

Classical Dance of Cambodia The epic poem of Rama (Ramayana) is believed to have been revealed to a Hindu holy man named Valmiki by Brahma, the god of creation. This religious literary work, dating from about ad 4, is known in various versions throughout India and Southeast Asia. In Cambodia, the story has been set to music and dance and performed by the Royal Ballet since the 18th century. Although the epic is also known in the villages, where it is translated orally or dramatized in the popular shadow puppet theater, the ballet was traditionally a courtly art performed in the palace or for princely festivals. The music of the ballet is performed by the Pinpeat orchestra, which is made up of traditional xylophones, metallophones, horizontal gongs, drums, and cymbals.

History

Khmer classical dance derived from Indian court dance, which traces its origins to the apsarases of Hindu mythology, heavenly female nymphs who were born to dance for the gods. The traditions of Thailand and Java (in Indonesia) also influenced the music and dance of Cambodia. In classical Cambodian dance, women, dressed in brightly colored costumes with elaborate headdresses, perform slow, graceful movements accompanied by a percussive ensemble known as the pinpeat. Pinpeat orchestras include drums, gongs, and bamboo xylophones. In Cambodia's villages, plays performed by actors wearing masks are popular. Shadow plays, performed using black leather puppets that enact scenes from the Reamkern, are also enjoyed. Folk dancing is popular in rural Cambodia and is performed spontaneously to a drumbeat.

Apsara Dance

At the heart of classical form is the Apsara, the joyful, almost wanton dancer whose images are everywhere. Princess Buppha Devi, who currently serves as the Minister of Culture, is a master of Apsar dancing, which dates to the 1st century. The graceful movements of the Apsara dancers, adorned with gold headdresses and silken tunics and skirts, are carved on the walls of many of the temples at Angkor. Estimates are that there were 3,000 Apsara dancers in the 12th century court of King Jayavarman VII.Over the centuries Khmer dancing lent its influence to the classical ballet of neighboring countries, and some of its postures and movements are similar to other Southeast Asian dance forms. But according to Princess Buppha Devi, "The Khmer kingdom started its traditions in the 8th century, 500 years before Thailand." In 1400, with the sacking of the Angkor Empire, the Apsara dancers were seized and taken to Thailand. Apsara dancing is one of two elements of classical ballet, the other being "today" dancing, the depiction of early myths. Many of the dances involve performing a fragment of the Ramayana, the ancient Indian epic that is one and a half times as long as the Odyssey. Others are based on the legendary battles and mythical sagas carved in bas relief on the walls of the temples of Angkor-including the Churning of the Sea of Milk, the great battle between gods and demons for the holy liquid that gives immortality. There are 100 dances and dramas.

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Khmer Traditional Dresses Understanding

Traditional dress in Cambodia is similar to traditional dress in neighboring Laos and Thailand. Sampot is the lower garment worn by either sex. The sampot for urban lower class and peasant women is a tube-skirt (sarong) approximately one and a half meters in length with both ends sewn together and is worn wrapped around the waist and secured with a cloth belt. Women of the middle and upper classes preferred to wear the sampot chang kben on a daily basis until the beginning of the twentieth century. This rectangular piece of cloth is approximately three meters long and one meter wide and is worn by first wrapping the cloth around the waist and stretching the ends away from the body. The outstretched ends are then twisted together and pulled between the legs and toward the back. The ends are tucked into the waist at the back, and the sampot chang kben is lastly fastened with a cloth or metal belt. Women of all social strata wear the sampot chang kben on special occasions such as religious ceremonies and weddings. Men also wear the sampot chang kben, but the traditional textile patterns worn by males differ from those worn by females. Traditionally, neither women nor men wore an upper garment. However, when the French colonial presence grew in Cambodia in the late nineteenth century, both men and women began to wear upper garments.

Even after the French presence in Cambodia from the 1860s onwards, Cambodians continued to wear traditional clothing. The Cambodian royalty and government officials combined the shot silk sampot chang kben (in the appropriate color for the day of the week) with a formal jacket. In the beginning of the twentieth century, Cambodians adopted forms of western style clothing such as a blouse or shirt. Men more readily adopted trousers as the lower garment for daily use, and both sexes continue to wear the sampot chang kben for formal occasions. Lower class and particularly rural women still wear a tube-skirt, but the material may be printed batik-patterned cloth bought at the market rather than hand-woven silk or cotton.

Silk Textiles

The most important silk textiles of Cambodia are the ikat silks (hol), twill-patterned, weft ikat textiles. The pattern is made by tying vegetable or synthetic fibers on sections of the weft threads before the threads are dyed. This process is repeated for different colored dye baths until the patterns are formed and the cloth is woven. The two types of hol textiles have five traditional colors: red, yellow, green, blue, and black. The sampot hol is the lower garment mentioned earlier, made from hol cloth (hol cloth can also be used for sampot chang kben). The pidan hol is a ceremonial hanging reserved for religious or sacred purposes.

The pidan hol is an example of excellent craftsmanship. It may be presented to a Buddhist temple or hung it in homes to create sacred space around the family's personal shrine. In a temple this textile is hung behind, above, or around the base of, a Buddha image. The narrative motifs of a pidan hol often depict tales of the previous lives of the Buddha.

Cotton Textiles

The various ethnic groups of Cambodia also produce cotton material for religious clothing and other purposes, such as for bedding and for various household textiles. The royal courts also imported Indian chintz with patterns especially for the Southeast Asian market.

The kroma is the all-purpose utility cotton cloth used by either men or women throughout the country as a head or neck scarf, belt, or towel. It is also used as a bag to carry things. This rectangular textile has a checkered pattern, usually blue and white or red and white, with striped ends. Political groups such as the Khmer Rouge have used the kroma to symbolize membership.

The Cham, an Austronesian group, are highly skilled silk weavers who produce cotton tube-skirts or sarongs for both men and women. Three or four hundred years ago, the Cham reportedly used to produce batiks (wax resist-dyed fabrics) in cotton similar to that of their kin in insular Southeast Asia. Cham women weave a checked or plaid cotton sarong for men. Natural or white cotton is important in Cham religious activities; it is worn by Cham priests and used as a sacred object during religious ceremonies.

Other Mon-Khmer and Austronesian minorities living in the northeastern region of Cambodia weave cotton cloth on back strap looms for clothing and domestic use. The groups of both of these linguistic families weave similar textiles by attaching the warp beam of the back strap loom to a tree or part of a house in order the achieve the lengths of woven material needed for their loincloths.

The male loincloth is approximately 20 to 25 centimeters wide and 3 to 7 meters long. It is indigo blue or black with large red warp stripes and smaller yellow and white warp stripes. Supplementary patterns also decorate the stripes. The ends of the loincloth are patterned with red bands with supplementary patterns of animal or plant motifs. Red tassels and lead, glass, or plastic beading sometimes decorate the edges and ends of the loincloth. Men of the various Mon-Khmer linguistic groups sometimes wear a blanket over a shoulder during rituals, but otherwise do not wear an upper garment. Occasionally, men wear a simple tunic made from plant fibers such as bark cloth or banana leaves. These plant-fiber tunics are reported to have been more common when the technology to weave cotton was not familiar to these groups. It is now rare to find clothing made from these fibers. Men of the Jarai and Ede Austronesian minorities wear a collarless shirt of indigo or black cotton adorned with red yarn or metal beads on special occasions.

Women of the different ethnic minorities wear tube skirts. The long tube-skirt is worn tucked in around the breasts and is made from two pieces of material sewn together to form a tube. The shorter version is made from one piece of cloth sewn into a tube and is worn tucked in at the waist. The color scheme of the women's tube-skirts is similar to that of the men's loincloth. Women either do not wear an upper garment or wear a simple tunic made from a single piece of cloth with a hole cut in the middle of the textile for the head and the sides sewn together leaving open spaces for the arms. Ede women add sleeves to the tunic and decorate them with red yarn and metal beading.

As with other Khmer and Cham ethnicities, the minority groups of northeast Cambodia presently reserve traditional dress for special occasions. Textile production in Cambodia has experienced disruption because of political conflict, particularly during the Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s. Textile production increased in the calmer conditions at the beginning of the twenty-first century, encouraged by renewed local and foreign interest in hand-woven textiles, particularly in mastering the dyeing and weaving of the pidan hol produced prior to the twentieth century.

Khmer Dress Colors for Special Occasions

For special occasions, men wear a light coloured shirt and coloured trousers. Women wear a silk sampot with matching hol (a type of shirt). In the evenings they often wear a phamuong or hol which is a silk dress with intricate patterns at the hem. They choose their sampot to match the traditional colour for the day of the week when the event is held.

1- Sunday: Red

2- Monday: Orange

3- Tuesday: Violet

4- Wednesday: Greenish yellow

5- Thursday: Green

6-Friday: Dark blue

7- Saturday: Dark purple

Khmer Ladies

Wonderful Dresses