The Laos art of silk weaving
THE outdoor workroom in a lush garden not far from the mighty Mekong River seems a world apart from Paris. A dozen Lao women talk among themselves as the city traffic from the streets of Vientiane swirls by. Their wooden shuttles make a soft slithering sound as they hand weave large swathes of silk fabric in rich colours on handcrafted looms.
Well before the success of handmade crafts on the e-commerce site Etsy, the studio of Carol Cassidy, an American master weaver, has been a favourite stop for travellers in this corner of Southeast Asia. Cassidy has been working with Lao weavers in the backyard of a grand old colonial mansion in central Vientiane for nearly three decades. Together they have kept alive age-old traditions of Lao design in woven cloth and the natural colours of a palette extracted from plants in the forests: reds, pinks, yellows, greens.
Just steps from the garden, her showroom, Lao Textiles, on the mansion’s wood-panelled first floor – a cool retreat from the city’s blazing heat – is a haven for easy-to-pack gifts. Day and evening silk scarves, zippered all-purpose s i l k pouches and elegant cushion covers are arrayed on tables, all at fairly reasonable prices for handmade pieces.
Few know that they are buying the creative effor ts of weavers who also make topof-the-line drapes, sofa and cushion coverings for the retail palaces of luxury fashion houses in Paris, London and Milan.
On the afternoon of my visit, a weaver was working thin strips of buttery soft beige leather into off-white silk thread stretched across the wooden frame of her loom. Flecks of gold silk gave contrast. Cassidy designed the fabric with its slightly rough texture especially for window shades for a store on the Champs-Élysées.
“We are the new luxury because our pieces are still entirely created by human beings with the uniqueness the human hand brings to the fabrics,” Cassidy said. As consumers worry about the ecological impact of what they buy, woven Laotian silk is a near perfect investment. “You can come here and see the preparation of the silk, the dyeing of silk, the