Revival of the Laos silk industry

    by Denise Heywood

In Vientiane’s "morning market," I bargin for raw silk, amid bolts of glorious colors: magenta, indigo, sunburst, violet, russet, jade. But my favorite is the luminous yellow cream or the natural color before dyeing, loosely woven, uneven, with shards of raw fiber still clinging to it. We settle a price, modest by my English standards, and l buy meters and meters.

The silk industry is possibly the oldest in the world, for according to ancient Chinese documents the first people to produce silk, the Ailoa of southern China, are thought to the ancestors of the Lao. But it faltered in the 1970s when the tiny, landlocked country, with a population of 4.5 million, was drawn into the war with the United States.

Today the rich weaving tradition Is being revived, with the help off the United Nations, the Lao Women’s Union, Carol Cassidy’s Lao Textiles and small enterprises. Every simple palm thatched house on stilts has a classical wood loom with vertical heddles--cords or wires--where women weave intricate designs and motifs, handed down from mother to daughter, based on region and ethnic group. There are four main ethnic groups, each with their own traditions, among them the Lao Tai whose weavers produced textiles for the royal court of the 14th century Lao kingdom, Lane Xang, Land of a Million Elephants. Women skilled at weaving were always assured of a husband.

In the aftermath of war, the women sold their heirlooms prized by collectors, and patterns started to disappear. Nylon superseded silk as less time consuming. Then the Lao Women’s Union was formed to preserve the weaving heritage and generate income for rural women. In 1989 Carol Cassidy, an American weaver, arrived as a consultant to provide technical cooperation between the Union and the United Nations Development Programme.

"I went into homes of 200 weavers around Vientiane and saw the extraordinary weaving they were doing," she recalled. "Their skills, dyes, colors and designs were truly exceptional. That was the inspiration. What is so fascinating is the variety of techniques and the artistic interpretation of design that the weavers have developed over thousands of years. In Indonesia they do weft and warp ikat. In Thailand they do brocade. In Laos they do a combination of all these, plus other techniques."

They weave everything from skirts, shawls, and head scarves to infant carriers, wedding costumes, funeral cloths, bedding and curtains, using techniques such as continuous and discontinuous supplementary warp and weft, interlock tapestry and warp (using cotton) and weft (using silk) ikat.

Weft ikat, or mat mi, is the technique of resist-dyeing the weft (the thread carried by the shuttle), by tying groups of wefts with plastic string. The weft resists dye penetration when immersed in dye. When the plastic strings are removed, the undyed parts reveal a pattern. The silk is woven into motifs of flowers, animals, ancient Hindu and Buddhist symbols and geometric designs attributed to the Vietnamese Dong Son culture of 500 BC.

Cassidy decided to resuscitate vanishing silk traditions. As Laos’ communist government was opening up under glasnost, she started the first wholly foreign business. She and her Ethiopian husband restored a colonial mansion in Vientiane which became her gallery, Lao Textiles, in 1990, where she employees 35 local weavers, whom she has trained in the ancient techniques of their grandmothers.

We sit in the cool interior with its dark polished wood, long, shuttered windows, and walls covered with luxurious hangings, drinking Lao coffee and eating croissants, a legacy from the days of the French protectorate. She describes her work as new versions of ancient designs, recreating the past heritage "and bringing it into the future." She monitors dyeing on-site. Lustrous, multi-hued skeins of silk hang in her tropical garden, wet from the chemical dyes she adjusts manually to get the exact shades that are computer matched to old pieces.

The American ambassador commissioned her designs for his residence, followed by the German ambassador. Thai royalty have commissioned pieces and she has exhibited in Hong Kong, New York and Sydney. Wall hangings range from US$60 to thousands of dollars, but each piece is unique.

Another gallery, The Art of Silk, was established in 1992 by tile Lao Women’s Union to exhibit antique textiles, the sole public collection in the country, and they sell new ones which they produce. Nearby, Madame Kanchana, a silk weaver since 1978, has a shop selling her contemporary and traditional clothes.

Cassidy says Lao handicrafts are a booming market, but she wants to remain a small enterprise. She had encouraged rural farmers to raise silk as an agricultural product. Silk worms feed on the leaves of mulberry trees. The larva spins a cocoon around itself, made up of one continuous filament, a process which takes 25 days. Cocoons are boiled in water to destroy the pupa and filaments are unraveled. The thread is degummed, by boiling in water and soda ash, and dried in the sun.

Mulberry trees proliferate in mountainous regions such as Luang Prabang on the upper Mekong. In the former capital of the Lane Xang kingdom, filled with magnificently carved, richly decorated wooden temples, another silkweaver, Madame Vandara, sells shawls, pae biang, and skirts, sin, produced on looms behind her guesthouse. Because of royal patronage, this area has a tradition of producing textiles of exceptional quality.

Vandara and her husband Humpheng have been developing a project since 1994 for growing mulberry trees for sericulture (silkworm raising) on their land. "There are about 50 families in ‘silk villages’ around here," said Humpheng. "We have been teaching mothers and daughters how to cultivate it." It is women who are responsible for every stage of silk production.

Vandara uses vegetable dyes: blue from the indigo plant, red from khang, a wax produced by insects, yellow from turmeric root, green from indigo leaves, pink from tree bark, brown from coconut husk. She weaves ikat, and produces traditional garments. "These are skills I learned from my mother," she said.

These inherited skills are vividly displayed at Luang Prabang’s market where hilltribe women still wear traditional costumes, with babies strapped to their backs in hand-woven carriers, illustrating how much silkweaving is part of the national identity.

The revival of this ancient tradition, which was almost lost, heralds a new era of economic recovery and national pride for Laos. It is a pride I shared when, back at home, I unwrapped the meters of shimmering silk.

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