ill attract girls and so make a marriage likely. The finest clothing is brought out for the New Year festival, for it is believed that wearing old clothes on New Year's Day means poverty throughout the rest of the year. Young married people also pay much attention to clothing, but as they grow older they lose interest in decorative clothing so that older people wear clothes with less ornamentation. They leave it to the young to set fashion trends. The style of clothing can be portrayed with as little reference to Western influence as possible, though with the increased accessibility of formerly remote mountain areas, Western styles such as T-shirts and jeans are appearing. In addition, new techniques for producing clothing are being adopted, such as sewing machines, now standard equipment in the earthen-floored homes of many of the Hmong. Hmong women have also found that cloth sold in the market with printed batik and embroidery designs imitating their patterns can be a great boon in ter
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