I HAVE A strong affinity to textiles—probably because when I was a wee girl, I would often wan - der among rows and rows of rolls of fabric, while my mother, who was a seamstress, slowly picked out the materials she needed to make clothes for her customers. When I started working and began travelling around Southeast Asia, I would make it a point to stop by a textile store to pick up a few metres of fabric to bring home—my most treasured being the Cambodian Silk Ikat (known as chong kiet in Khmer) and the Royal Pahang Silk.

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