How primary Vietnamese 'lotus silk' weaver rose to success
28 August, 2020
Vietnamese weaver Phan Thi Thuan hitches up her trousers as she wades into a lotus paddy to assemble the stems needed to make a exceptional and highly sought-just after thread.
Her great-aunt made and sold traditional silk to the French during colonial guideline, passing the technique to Thuan, who started weaving when she was 6 in her village on the outskirts of Hanoi.
But 3 years ago Thuan spotted a new opportunity in the lotus stems kept to rot in nearby fields after the seeds have been harvested for food.
She started extracting the fibre within the stems to create "lotus silk", a special textile highly sought by manner designers.
"I was the 1st in Vietnam," the 65-year-old told AFP proudly.
"I started simply by myself, then I trained those currently in my own workshop," she added.
Farmers often toil all night to sharp lotus paddies of rotting stems, which ruin the soil and bring unwanted insects.
But because of her vision, Thuan today leads a good team of about 20 mostly female employees who snap off the stems in the paddies, before they tease out the fragile fibres and roll them into thread.
Dressed head-to-toe in brown silk and wearing a pearl necklace -- the same outfit she dons while she picks through the lotus paddies -- Thuan describes her work.
It's a painstaking method -- a big scarf requires the thread of around 9,200 stems and would take one worker around two months to complete -- but Thuan insists it's worthwhile.
"I see this seeing that my task right now, to generate jobs, and do my little bit for the environment," she said, adding that during busy periods, she employs hundreds to weave from your home.
The gains are another reason to persevere.
While a regular silk scarf might choose 20 dollars, a good smaller lotus version -- favored by pre-coronavirus tourists -- fetches a lot more than 10 times that.
Although lotus silk is manufactured in a small number of countries -- including Myanmar and Cambodia -- Thuan is seen as an innovator in Vietnam.
She has been supported by the Ministry of Research and Technology, which kickstarted a three-year national-level job to help expand develop the harvesting strategy.
Thuan also runs workout sessions during the school getaways, hoping to show kids there is space for dynamism even found in this ancient job. Nguyen Thi Xoa, 40, was educated by Thuan in 2017 and she now needs her children to follow in her thread.
"At the beginning it had been very difficult, however now I love carrying it out," she explained. "It's a stable job and I'm pleased with it."(AFP)
Source: fashionunited.uk