One of her needlework accomplishments, an elaborate embroidered top for a card table, is still in the collection of the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Women wear long embroidered skirts and colorful tops.

Her chiseled and beautiful face beaming, she carried white flowers and wore a simple white linen V-necked embroidered top and trousers.

In Paris, New York and Milan, beaded, embroidered and generally gussied-up bra-shaped tops have been paired with long skinny skirts or slinky bell-bottom pants.

Ms. Esguerra was at the checkout counter with a sack of rice when she noticed a woman dressed exotically in an embroidered top and trousers carrying some egg roll wrappers.

You'll find brightly coloured embroidered tops and skirts plus big-statement jewellery.

But most intriguing are his linen sampler shirts, doll-size high-necked embroidered tops ($30 to $150) sewn by novice Victorian seamstresses.

Russia, he said, after a long pause, looking at a woman in a head scarf and embroidered top who was watching television news.

The Turkish-born Londoner's feral-looking trousers and evening dresses, and his embroidered tops, have spawned a wealth of imitations.

The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.