This tunic or ‘baju kurong’ was tailored from cloth decorated with songket supplementary weft weave. It features floral motifs in a lattice of squares. Prior to the arrival of Islam in the Malay peninsula, neither the nobility nor commoners seems to have covered the upper body with clothing. Islam encouraged more a modest form of dressing and thus the use of shirts and jackets. Tunics thus became increasingly widespread as everyday wear.