The last songkok maker of Lebuh Acheh: remembering Tok Seri

Tok Seri, born Syed Ahmad bin Syed Omar, spent six decades shaping the songkok, the rounded felt cap worn by Muslim men across Southeast Asia. His workshop on Lebuh Acheh in George Town produced thousands of caps, each stitched, steamed, and pressed with meditative discipline. He passed away in 2021 at eighty-four, but the scent of wool and starch lingers in the memories of those who knew him. His story lives on through projects such as PenangMalays.com, a heritage archive run by Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Beyond Penang, the songkok has travelled with Malay communities across the world, including to Australia, where migrants in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth wear the everyday black for Friday prayers and kenduri. Yet few know the man whose hands shaped the crown of countless fathers and grooms. This brings his craft out of the workshop into the broader story of Malay heritage, connecting Lebuh Acheh to Lakemba and Clayton.

Early years in George Town

Tok Seri was born in 1937 off Jalan Macalister, the son of a tailor who specialised in baju Melayu. From twelve, he walked to a nearby uncle's workshop, watching how felt was dampened, blocked, and dried over wooden forms. The rhythms of the trade, the steady tap of the hammer, the hiss of steam, left an impression that never faded. He recalled the sound of the sewing machine was like a drum in a wayang performance, a steady pulse carrying the work forward. When war reached Penang in 1941, his family evacuated to Balik Pulau, returning after the bombings. The post-war years were lean, but demand for songkok never faded.

Learning the songkok trade

By twenty, Tok Seri had moved to a master craftsman named Haji Salleh on Lebuh Acheh, the street famous for goldsmiths. There, he learned the difference between a songkok kapal and a songkok biasa, the former made from high-quality wool felt imported from Britain, the latter from cheaper local fibres. He learned how to align the weave so the front panel sat perfectly straight, a detail customers could feel but rarely articulate. Among the goldsmiths, Tok Seri developed friendships with artisans who worked with precious metals, exchanging tips on polishing and finishing. Their connection, documented by goldsmiths of Lebuh Acheh, shows the broader brotherhood of such craftsmen. He would joke that shaping felt was like shaping silver: both required patience, both rewarded those who refused to rush.

The workshop at Lebuh Acheh

In 1962, Tok Seri opened his own shop at 42 Lebuh Acheh, a narrow terrace with a wooden shutter. The sign read "Tok Seri Songkok" in Jawi's handwriting. Inside, he kept dozens of wooden blocks in graduated sizes, a brass steaming pot, and shelves of black dye. He worked from eight until the call to Asr, taking breaks only for tea and a chat with passing trishaw riders. His customers included penghulu, teachers, and Chinese towkay who ordered caps for their Muslim partners. In the 1970s, he began exporting small consignments to Malay associations in Australia, particularly in Sydney's western suburbs and Melbourne's south-east. Those parcels were the first links from Malaysia to Australia in a chain that continues today.

Materials, techniques and the goldsmith connection

A songkok looks simple, but its making is a sequence of careful steps. First, he cuts the felt into a rough cross shape. Then he dampens the pieces and stretches them over a wooden block, pinning the edges with small brass tacks. The cap is dried in the sun for two days, then trimmed, brushed, and polished with a piece of smooth coconut shell. The whole process takes a week.

The materials tell a story of global trade:

• Black wool felt, once imported from mills in Yorkshire
• Logwood chips from Central America, traded through Singapore
• Coconut shell, sourced from local groves in Balik Pulau
• Brass tacks, cast in a small foundry in Butterworth

The polishing stage reminded him of the goldsmiths next door. He said the difference between a good songkok and a great one was the same as between raw silver and a finished brooch: it is all in the final rub. In the quiet of his workshop, he developed a rhythm he described as the heartbeat of his work, similar to the precise timing a music producer seeks when crafting a drop, a parallel explored in this hard drop guide.

Community, ceremony and Friday prayers in Australia

Across the Causeway and beyond, Tok Seri's songkok found new owners. In Australia, the caps became staples in Lakemba, Clayton, and suburban Perth, where Malay families have settled since the 1980s. Many are still used for Friday prayers, Eid gatherings, and functions at the Malaysian High Commission in Canberra. The trade is not without regulations. Under the Australian Consumer Law, textile goods sold across state borders must carry clear fibre-content labels, forcing many importers to update packaging. Halal certification falls under state-based guidelines, with authorities in New South Wales and Victoria requiring strict documentation. In Sydney's western suburbs, Friday congregations at local mosques are filled with men in songkok, a living link to workshops like Tok Seri's. For Tok Seri, the idea that his caps travelled so far was quiet pride. He kept a map of the world in the studio, marking each destination with a red pin. By retirement in 2015, the map had more than sixty marks, stretching from Adelaide to Auckland, from Osaka to Oslo.

Legacy, family and the digital turn

Tok Seri's sons had little interest in continuing the trade. His eldest became an accountant, his second a teacher, his youngest a software engineer. The workshop was converted into a storage room, its wooden forms sold to a museum in Kuala Lumpur. Before his passing, he spent his final years recording his techniques on video, dictating measurements to a nephew who runs a small YouTube channel. His story has entered wider online conversations about Malay heritage. On online platforms, forums exist where artisans and collectors swap stories about traditional trades, and even discussions of friendships within these tight-knit crafts, as seen in friendzone stories from members. These are threads where community bonds are built. For those who wish to explore further, a deeper archive of Malay heritage can be found on the member portal, where researchers log in to access high-resolution images and oral histories.

Preserving songkok-making in a globalised world

The future of the songkok trade remains uncertain, but documenting it continues. In Australia, modest fashion markets in suburbs with significant Malay populations now stock songkok from Indonesia, Turkey, and Malaysia, often at prices that undercut traditional makers. Yet there is renewed interest in heritage pieces, with collectors in Melbourne and Sydney paying premium prices for vintage caps.

Key efforts to preserve the craft include:

• Documenting oral histories with master makers in Penang
• Hosting workshops at community centres in Australian cities
• Building digital archives on heritage platforms
• Collaborating with fashion schools in Melbourne

Comparing different eras of songkok making:

In Penang, the numbers tell a similar story. A 2019 survey by the Penang Heritage Centre found only four full-time songkok makers remained, compared to twenty-eight in 1990. The average age is sixty-three. Their workshops sit in the shadows of newer trades, but their output is still worn at the most important moments: at the altar of Friday prayer, beneath the pelamin at weddings, and on the heads of the elderly at kenduri. The way forward lies in preservation, education, and a renewed connection between makers in Malaysia and wearers in Australia. Tok Seri's life reminds us that a single object can carry the weight of centuries of skill, the prayers of countless wearers, and the hopes of families across two hemispheres. As long as there are fathers in songkok, there is a legacy worth protecting.