Home MORE ON Weaving


Weaving

We have a incubator workshop in Cambodia composed of two looms and four weavers who are producing limited series of cloth, using the ikat technique. The weavers produce samples of our design. Afterwards, we use weavers in Takeo Province to replicate the successful design.

In Laos, we rely on a network of weavers in Houaphanh, mainly based in Samneua (provincial city) and Samtai, which is known as being the cradle of the best Houaphanh weavers. They are from the Tai Daeng ethnic group. We have over the years collected pieces from the whole province such as Tai lue blanket, old skirts for daily use, cushions but also some ethnographic materials about their life style, the architecture of their houses.

We like replicating traditional pieces and saw that they have their very own place in our modern décor. The characteristic color palette of traditional Cambodia silk features reds, principally maroon hue & burgundy; indigo and green also feature as background colors. At times, we also like to innovate with interpretative design, in blending for example Lao patterns with ikat dyeing. As we know, Cambodia weavers are excelling in the ikat technique while Houaphanh weavers use the supplementary weft technique. We asked our Khmer weavers to reproduce a Tai Daeng cotton Banklet but using the ikat technique and silk materials (Tai Daeng Blanket in ikat technique). The result surprises many by its modernism.

One characteristic in Cambodian textile is that weavers have lost the use of natural dyes for two or three generations and even 30-40 year old cloth have been dyed with chemical dyes. However, our atelier has reintroduced natural dyes using leaves and bark of the trees to obtain the exquisite Peacock Cloth.

 

 
Workshops Brief