Beijing restaurant halts use of SIA's iconic sarong kebaya uniform

A Singapore-styled restaurant in Beijing known as Borderless made headlines this week after pictures of the waitresses dressed in the iconic Singapore Airlines (SIA) sarong kebaya uniform emerged. However, MARKETING-INTERACTIVE understands that the waitresses are no longer wearing the SIA uniforms after being contacted by the airline.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has also reached out to SIA.

The iconic SIA sarong kebaya has long been associated with the identity of the Singapore Girl persona which came about in the 1970s. The outfit was designed by Parisian couturier Pierre Balmain in 1968 and comes in four colours - blue, green, red, and purple - each representing the designation of the Singapore Girl who wears it. Despite the changes in fashion over the decades, SIA said on its website that the Singapore Girl remains timeless across generations and is a symbol of Asian hospitality recognised worldwide.

SIA has long kept the batik imprint a part of its brand identity and the airline even launched a sonic signature last year titled "The Sound of Singapore Airlines". Taking the Batik imprint to the next level, the team at SIA has spent weeks developing the colour frequencies of the flowers of SIA's batik motif into 14 sets of melodic fragments and these were then used to compose the melodies.

As such, it is understandably a key component of the brand’s identity.

Meanwhile, the store in Beijing which touted itself to be “Singapore-style” also confused (and brought laughter) to many with its menu with somewhat strange translations and naming of local dishes. For example, beef rendang was misspelt as "beef remdamg" and Singapore BBQ pork was spelt as "Singapore barbegue pore". Meanwhile, sambal kang kong was labelled "tauhu goreng" while roti prata became "Lion City throw bread".

There were also other bizarre dishes such as "Grasp the sand bone", "Fried tofu with minced Malay meat", and "Dong Yin Gong Fat Cow" which was supposed to mean Tom Yum Goong. The post had 2.8k reactions, 1.5k comments, and 9.7k shares at the time of writing.

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