This kua belonged to Mrs Kwok Swee Ying née Tong, who was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1914. She wore this kua when she married her husband, Kwok Chan Kwan, in March 1937. In 1953 she moved with her family from Penang to Singapore. The kua is the abbreviated name for the qun kua (裙褂) or long feng gua (龍鳳褂), an ensemble consisting of a blouse and skirt which is worn by a bride in traditional Southern Chinese weddings. Many Southern Chinese migrated to Southeast Asia, and hence the qun kua is often used by ethnically Chinese brides in Singapore and Malaysia. In this qun kua, the kua (blouse) is black and is embroidered with auspicious phoenix and peony motifs in gold, silver and coloured metallic thread. These motifs reappear on the qun (skirt), which is red. In the 1930s, brides wore a variety of wedding attire. Some would wear their traditional ethnic wedding attire, others adopted the wedding fashions of the West. Still others chose to mix the two, wearing their ethnic attire for one portion of the ceremony and the western attire for another part of the ceremony. Wearing western bridal gowns was more common among the Eurasians, Straits-born Chinese, and the Chinese and Indians who converted to Christianity in the 1920s and 1930s. Mrs Kwok Swee Ying wore a western wedding gown during the wedding ceremony, and probably wore this kua for the tea ceremony.The kua is still popular as an element in weddings in Singapore today, and this kua was reused in 1995 when Mrs Kwok Swee Ying's granddaughter wore it for her wedding.
