“When I was 30, as I was preparing for my wedding,” Kong said. “I suddenly kept thinking, ‘What if I wore a ceremonial Peranakan outfit for my wedding?’
“Throughout my teens and early 20s, I wouldn’t even wear a kebaya unless it was for special occasions like Chinese New Year,” she said. “But for my wedding, my heart was set on a traditional wedding outfit and my husband, who is not Peranakan, was willing to respect my wishes.
“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the very intricate outfits tailor-made in Malaysia in time for my wedding in 1997,” she said.
It was around this period that, to make up for what she missed during her wedding, Kong started paying closer attention to the details of traditional Peranakan wear.