Museum Explorer
Dress and ornament in Asia
Woman’s dress
From: Myanmar, Burma
Date: late 19th century AD
This simple dress was made by a woman of the Karen people, from the hills of eastern Burma. She sewed two narrow strips of cotton together, leaving a hole for the neck and two holes for the arms. She then decorated the dress with red silk embroidery and extra pieces of sewn-on material (called appliqué). The white decoration is made from sewn-on seeds of a leafy grass called ‘Job’s tears’.
