From past to present: The kebaya’s UNESCO-honored story

The news came in December, but for many, it felt overdue. The kebaya—a blouse-dress combination worn across Southeast Asia for generations—was officially inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It wasn’t just a ceremonial title. It was the result of a rare five-nation submission, led by Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, and Thailand. The move signaled that, despite differences in cut, motif, or cultural meaning, the region was united in preserving a garment that has dressed women for centuries.

For Cedric Tan, the recognition wasn’t a surprise. A sixth-generation Peranakan and longtime kebaya researcher, he had spent decades making sure the garment was documented, exhibited, and kept in the public eye. His earliest memories of the kebaya are domestic, almost ordinary. His grandmother wore one every day—sometimes elaborately embroidered, sometimes a plainer home version—until she passed away. That quiet consistency stayed with him. By secondary school, Tan was curating fashion shows featuring kebaya from different eras. By the early 2000s, he was working with the late Endon Mahmood, wife of then-Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, to catalogue over 100 of her Nyonya kebaya pieces.

The UNESCO nod might be recent, but Tan’s work has been about building a bridge between private memory and public heritage. He has curated exhibitions in the National Art Gallery and Singapore, consulted for the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Peranakan Association, and in 2022, contributed directly to Malaysia’s UNESCO nomination. “That was an honor,” he says, though his voice carries the tone of someone for whom preservation is less about prestige and more about inevitability.

To understand why the kebaya matters, you have to see it beyond the tourist-shop version. Traditionally, it’s an open-fronted blouse with lapels in the front and a gusset—“kekek” in Malay—under the arm for ease of movement. The design has always been functional, even as embroidery and fabric choices shifted with time, trade, and taste. Tan points out that the kebaya isn’t native to Malaysia. It’s a hybrid garment, shaped by centuries of movement across oceans. Some trace its roots to Muslim traders, others to Portuguese influence.

Originally, it was a long garment—the kebaya panjang—until the early 20th century in Indonesia, when Dutch colonial rules allowed Peranakan women to wear the kebaya in public, elevating their status to that of Dutch women. That shift also sparked a move toward a shorter, more tailored version, which quickly became fashionable. It’s a reminder that clothing often changes when politics do.

Today, fabrics for kebaya range from locally spun cotton to Indian pelikat cloth to Chinese silks. The embroidery turns each piece into a canvas: florals, animals, geometric lacework, sometimes whimsical, sometimes ceremonial. Tan’s personal collection includes a century-old kebaya panjang, a rare squirrel-embroidered piece with delicate cut-outs, scalloped-border designs, and a white mourning kebaya. There’s the “kebaya setengah tiang” from Negeri Sembilan and the “kebaya labuh,” favored among Malay women—each with its own local variation in cut and style.

The kebaya has always been tied to identity, particularly for Peranakan women, who still wear it for cultural events and celebrations. But like any traditional garment, it’s now caught between two worlds: the formal, ceremonial look and the casual, modern reinterpretation. Tan is pragmatic about this. He believes in maintaining the traditional style when promoting the kebaya as heritage, but accepts that younger generations might wear it differently—layered over jeans, styled with sneakers, or treated as a statement jacket. For him, letting people “meet” the kebaya on their own terms is part of keeping it alive.

But preservation has its frictions. Skilled embroiderers—the craftspersons who turn plain fabric into heirlooms—are aging. Many are over 40, with few young apprentices. Without sustained training and interest, the intricate handiwork that defines much of the kebaya’s beauty risks fading into factory-made imitation. This isn’t a uniquely Malaysian problem. Across the world, traditional garments are being simplified or mass-produced for speed and affordability, losing the subtle irregularities that handwork gives.

The UNESCO recognition brings visibility, but visibility doesn’t automatically translate into infrastructure. A garment doesn’t survive because it’s displayed in a museum; it survives because it’s worn. And here’s where the kebaya walks a delicate line. In formal settings, it’s still a marker of respect and heritage. In everyday life, it competes with the pull of convenience—fabrics that don’t require ironing, styles that fit more loosely into a modern wardrobe.

On social media, the kebaya sits in two distinct feeds. One is archival and reverent—old photographs, slow-motion embroidery videos, stylized portraits for heritage campaigns. The other is playful, full of styling hacks for wearing kebaya casually, paired with bucket hats or chunky boots. Both feed into a larger conversation about what it means to “keep tradition alive.” Is it about replication or adaptation? About staying true to the original silhouette, or making space for remixing?

For Tan, the answer is layered. When the goal is cultural promotion, he argues for preserving the traditional look. But he doesn’t dismiss modern styling as dilution. Instead, he sees it as an entry point—a way for someone who’s never worn a kebaya to try it without feeling like they’re stepping into a costume. Once the garment becomes part of someone’s personal rotation, its history becomes harder to ignore.

The kebaya’s UNESCO recognition also reframes it beyond national boundaries. In a region where cultural heritage often becomes a point of contention, the joint submission signals a shared ownership, or at least a shared guardianship. This collaborative framing matters. It tells a story of Southeast Asia not just as a cluster of separate traditions, but as an interconnected cultural map where influences have always crossed borders.

In the months since the announcement, there’s been a subtle uptick in kebaya content online. Young designers are showcasing reinterpretations that still nod to heritage cuts. Cultural groups are hosting embroidery workshops. Brides are choosing kebaya for engagement shoots. None of these individually guarantees the garment’s survival, but together, they hint at a living tradition still adapting.

There’s also the quiet fact that wearing a kebaya changes how you move. The fit, the way the fabric falls, the fastening with kerongsang brooches—it all slows you down slightly. You become more aware of your posture, your gestures. In an era where much of fashion is designed for speed and stretch, that shift in pace is its own cultural statement.

The UNESCO listing may protect the kebaya’s intangible heritage, but its tangible life depends on the people who keep reaching for it—not because it’s mandated, but because it feels like a part of them. Maybe that’s why Tan’s earliest memory of the kebaya—his grandmother wearing one daily—still resonates. The garment was never a spectacle in her hands. It was just what you wore. And sometimes, that’s the most powerful kind of tradition: the one that fits so seamlessly into life that you almost forget it’s heritage.

In the end, the kebaya’s story isn’t only about fabric, cut, or embroidery. It’s about how a piece of clothing can hold a history of trade, migration, adaptation, and identity—all without needing to declare it. The UNESCO recognition is a spotlight, but the glow will fade unless the garment stays in motion, literally on bodies, crossing streets and borders as it has for centuries.

Maybe the kebaya’s next century will look different. Maybe the lapels will soften, the gusset shift, the embroidery thread come in neon colors. Maybe it will sit next to denim on a clothing rack. If so, it will still carry with it the memory of the women who wore it long before algorithms decided what we see. And in that way, the kebaya will keep doing what it has always done—adapting quietly, without losing the threads that make it whole.