PHNOM PENH (dpa) – Sapor Rendall was born into a poor rice farmers’ settlement in Cambodia’s Kompong Thom province, and at the age of 12 was sent away to foster parents to reduce the number of mouths to feed.
Now at the age of 29, she is the country’s top fashion designer, running her own studio in the capital, and when she returns to her village there are cries of delight as the residents run to greet her.“It’s like a big party. They come running, shouting ‘Sapor, you’ve been on television again,” the slender woman says.In her Pnomh Penh studio she oversees the outfits of a number of her students.“All children have dreams. I hoped for a better life, but I never dared think of a modelling career. I was too short, and would never be tall enough for a model, I thought at the age of 20,” she says with a smile.Today most of the girls powdering their faces in the huge mirrors are considerably taller than Sapor. She takes in students unable to pay if she thinks: “She will make it.”“Once they stand on the ramp, they can pay back the costs of their training,” this modern Cambodian power woman says.Referring to her growing reputation abroad as well as at home, Sapor says: “It’s good that foreigners are beginning to realize that Cambodia is back. Things are looking up.”When she left her mother and siblings in 1984, many were going hungry in Cambodia. “My father was dead. My foster parents had a small shop and had the bare necessities of life. And I wanted to see more of the world,” she says.At the age of 17, Sapor left with her foster parents for a new life in Australia, living for a time in an immigration camp. She underwent further education and got to know her husband, Matthew Rendall.She began to take an interest in clothes when she and her husband returned to Cambodia in 1994. Sapor did traditional dance performances in the clothing of the Khmer for the benefit of tourist audiences, and while still a secretary in the South Korean embassy, she made her first clothes.Now she is mistress of her own School of Modelling, a spacious building in a quiet sidestreet with office, studio, school and showroom, where her young students constantly ask her for comment on their clothes and make-up. The rood terrace has exotic plants and a view onto tropical gardens and old houses in the neighbourhood.Yors Maree, 19, is half a head taller than her boss and already shows considerable self-confidence on the ramp.“If you are trained here and find work, the world is your oyster. I intend to make use of this opportunity,” she says.Sapor herself went to a similar school six years ago. “Here in Cambodia etiquette, how to set a table, flower arranging, how to sit and walk are also taught,” she says.Her teacher at the time encouraged her. “Sapor, you have a pretty face and move well. Become a model.”Within a year she was a success on the ramp. “Everything went so quickly, and no one worried about my lack of height,” she says.Soon she was creating her own collections, and receiving recognition for her design based on traditional Khmer garments. “I often mix them with Western styles and international trends,” she says.Cambodians, emerging from years of war, bombs, massacres and the bloody dictatorship of Pol Pot long for beautiful things once more.The signs of the country’s recent past are everywhere – walking in the sunset along the banks of the Mekong those who lost limbs can be seen alongside the couples taking a walk between the palms and the temples.Here the lights are also going on in the expensive restaurants that line the esplanade, where most of the country’s eight million inhabitants cannot afford to eat.Sapor sees these new restaurants, with their foreign dishes, as an indication that Cambodia is on the rise “not only in fashion but also in tourism and cuisine”.Cambodia has much to offer apart from the famous temples at Angkor Wat in the north, and the royal palace and Wat Phnom temple in Pnomh Penh.There is also the memorial to the Killing Fields outside the city and the museum and memorial Tuol Sleng in the centre. Just 15 kilometres outside the city, the Stone Age Communists executed 40,000 of their countrymen, burying their bodies in shallow graves.During the bloody reign of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, up to two million people died.Sapor is looking to the future. Following successes beyond Cambodia’s borders, for example in Malaysia, she now has her eye on Hong Kong.“And why not Milan or Paris one day. I’m still young and there’s no rush,” she says.But the past is ever-present. At Pnomh Penh airport the country’s fashions are on sale. The labels on the inside of the colourful tops with lots of pockets and embroidered designs carry the words: “Made by female landmine victims”.
