The Luka dress from LeeZu is all about the fabric with its beautiful design and the form, with its exaggerated sleeves.

It’s funny how the mind works, I was looking at the fabulous new mesh dress from LeeZu and its extra-long sleeves. They reminded me of three former housemates of mine from Malaysia. They were Muslim women who usually wore Western dress but with longer skirts and a hijab that covered their bodice and sleeves to right about the length of these sleeves. They were already in my mind when I saw the back of the dress and all of a sudden out of my memory bank popped the Malay expression for rose, bunga mawar. I never actually learned Malay while living with them, but absorbed enough that I could contribute to a Malay conversation in English. I thought I had forgotten everything until I saw this dress.

A bunga mawar by any other name would smell as sweet.

I added some tights from Maitreya and the fabulous Nicki ankle boots from Baiastice.

Thinking about them brought back all sorts of fun memories such as teaching them how to roller skate and cross-country ski. They were quite devout and while they took their hijabs off at the apartment and usually wore sarongs, they always wore them outside, including while cross-country skiing and roller-skating. Watching the hijabs fluttering in the breeze as they skiied down the hill at the park or raced round the track at the skating rink was a delight. One time they dressed me up so I could experience the special difficulties of managing the ski poles with the hijab and a long skirt. I much preferred the sarong, though I never quite perfected securing it so it stayed up faithfully. The thing was, their hijabs were a symbol of their faith, not a prison and they never kept that from experiencing new things and enjoying life.

The hair is from Lelutka and can be worn with or without the pony tail

We did a lot of things together. They taught me how to cook some Malay foods. I taught them how to cook some Swedish pastries. We discovered that krumkake and kueh kapit are almost alike but different and it cracked us up that not only did they look alike, they were full of the letter k despite coming from countries at the antipodes of each other. We played volleyball, basketball, and went tubing on the Apple River. They burned my mouth with sambal blachan and I freaked them out with torsk – by doing absolutely nothing to it.

The jewelry is from Undefined Lilies and can be worn with one, two or all three of the “brambles” on the necklace. There is so much detailing in this jewelry that you should touch each piece in order to rez all the prims that make it so very rich looking. The skin is from Glam Affair – the fabulous Giselle.

It’s a little heartbreaking how we lost touch over time. I am still “Linked In” with one of them and we exchange pleasantries from time to time, but that giggling, exuberant, closeness that would have us rolling on the floor in laughter and watching scary movies scrunched together in a ball has gone – lost in time and distance.

The Noweeta Grasslands is a lovely place to shoot photos and have a lot to see.

Anyway, the dress may be called Luka, but it’s bunga mawar to me. And now let me share one thing why bunga mawar popped into my head and brought such a cascade of memories.  R. played this song again and again and again. The others rolled their eyes at and called it an “oldie goldie” but it is the reason that bunga mawar brings a very wonderful time back to mind.