Pleated Skirts

 Pleated skirts took the fashion scene like storm in Sibu. It also coincided with the opening of Ngiu Kee as the first Sibu Foochow Departmental Store which stocked ready made clothes besides hundreds of other goods including the best of textiles.

 It was first opened in High Street and then later at Raminway, a double storeyed, two shop lot big departmental store. 

The Shop was the most trendy in town. Some humble people from the rural area were even scared to enter the shop with so little money in their pockets.

In those days people did not have the time and money for window shopping.

My aunt a good friend of one of the towkay neos said that every bride must buy a pair of shoes and a bag from Ngiu Kee. And that would be the least she could buy. Some might spend thousands just for the wedding day which would include a make up set, a few off the peg dresses, suitcases,underwear and even a red umbrella.

Then every woman and young ladies started wearing pleated skirts sold in Ngiu Kee. Some even asked relatives to buy for them in Singapore and elsewhere. They looked so glamourous.

Those who could not afford ready made pleated skirts asked their tailors to iron pleats for their skirts, which many did successfully.

My mother,although not educated in English would be able to recognise Marilyn Monroe in the pictures. She thought that the pleated skirt looked like something worn by an angel.

I will always remember how my mother saved money to buy me a pleated skirt so that I would look nice as a temporary teacher. I wore that pleated skirt for four years at the university in Kuala Lumpur.

It was the most beautiful skirt I ever had because for 7 years prior to my owning a pleated skirt, I wore the school blue skirt during and after school.

Those were the days.