“Have you bought your clothes for Eid?” That’s the question my father asks me every year, and every year, I give him some version of the same answer: not yet. It is never because I have forgotten, nor do I dislike wearing traditional attire. If anything, I now have the opposite problem of trying not to go overboard when choosing an outfit. The setback has always been the stress of finding it—the perfect Eid look.
Growing up, the occasion had always been bigger than the four walls of our home. My childhood home was nestled in a little lane in Telok Kurau, a small community that felt like a modern-day kampung, with houses lined up side by side. What made it feel so warm and kampung-like was the sense of community, which really came alive during festivities, one of them being Eid. The entire lane would be lit up with festive lights called lampu kelap kelip, and even our non-Muslim neighbours would join in, opening up their homes and visiting one another. It became a communal celebration, where we would hop from one open home to the next, catching up over assortments of kueh and plenty of laughter. It was also one of my earliest introductions to just how varied the day could look, with neighbours of different races bringing their own colours to the same celebration, in everything from the food to the clothes.
Even then, though, I slowly started to realise that the version of Eid most people recognised in Singapore was not always the one I knew best. “Wait, but you’re Indian, so why do you celebrate Hari Raya?” It was the kind of question I would always get, which made sense, given how often the occasion here is seen through a distinctly Malay Muslim lens.
And the special day looked a little different in my home growing up. On the first day, my aunty would serve dum biryani, a classic Indian dish usually reserved for festivities, while my cousins and I, all from different backgrounds, would turn up in all kinds of outfits, from abayas and dresses to baju kurungs, lehengas, saris and punjabis.
Then there was the added layer of being hijabi. Among my cousins, I was the first to start wearing the hijab, which did not exactly make things easier. It also did not help that I was already growing up in a body I had never really been taught to see kindly. We all go through that awkward phase where we have not quite grown into ourselves yet. And personal style, at least in those years, did not always feel like a playground. Sometimes it just felt like a mirror held up at unfortunate angles.
I still remember the first time I wore a Punjabi suit. I was so excited about it, only for that feeling to quickly disappear after someone remarked that it “just looks like it’s hung on a hanger.” It was a direct way of saying it looked awkward on me, and for a girl already unsure of how she looked, it stuck. Clothes stopped being just clothes after that, and they became entangled with whether I looked right in them at all.
“And personal style, at least in those years, did not always feel like a playground. Sometimes it just felt like a mirror held up at unfortunate angles.”
Eid being that one occasion where you see most of your family, that only added to the dread—and with it, the procrastination. Still, somewhere in all that, I began to learn how to style myself. With not many people to take inspiration from, apart from the occasional Bollywood film, I started seeing clothing through my own lens. Can I add long sleeves to this outfit? What if I pair this top with a lehenga skirt to make it more modest? Is the neckline high enough? What I could not find ready-made, I learned to build through small tweaks and little experiments.
That is also how the vendors at Tekka Market became my best friends. With its many shops and endless rows of pieces shipped directly from India, it became something of a haven. Bonus points for the tailors, whose efficiency was off the charts—able to make minor adjustments in an hour, sometimes even less. Returning every year and seeing the same familiar faces, I always knew I was in good hands. “Wow, you look like a bride,” one store owner remarked as she carefully draped a dupatta over my head while I was trying on this hybrid of an abaya and an anarkali dress, a piece that felt almost perfect for me. “Aunty, this is too much,” I laughed, even though I still ended up buying it.
And just like that, slowly, through little experimentations and small wholesome moments that made me feel seen, I found my confidence again. To me, that is where fashion as a vessel for personal expression really shines: as a reflection of you and your story, sometimes seen in something as simple as a lehenga that has gone through a few alterations, or even an interesting mishmash iteration.
For all the stress, finding an Eid outfit has never really been about indecision. If anything, it has always carried a little more weight than that. It holds the memory of never quite fitting the mould and of finding my place in a festive picture that did not always look like mine. But it also holds something softer now: the satisfaction of having come into my own.
