Longyi

What is Longyi?

The longyi is a piece of cloth worn in Myanmar. Most are about two metres long and eighty centimetres wide, and many are stitched into a tube. It sits at the waist and falls to the feet, held by folding the fabric over itself, with no knot. Men's versions are called paso and women's htamein; they differ in pattern and in the way they are tied. Cotton is the everyday cloth, though silk, crepe, satin and georgette are also used. It is ordinary dress in towns and villages alike, not something kept only for special days.

Where does Longyi come from?

The tube-shaped cloth is a fairly recent arrival in Myanmar. It became common under British rule, taking the place of two older garments: the paso worn by men and the htamein worn by women. Before that, men's taungshay paso was a long, unsewn length of about thirty feet. Women's htamein was shorter, open at the front and finished with a train. The word longyi once described the sarong worn by Malay men, and the looser Malay and Indian style was adopted more quickly in Lower Burma and in the towns.

How is Longyi made?

There is no single recipe. Cotton is the basic cloth, but imported and home-grown fabric alike is cut into longyis, and weavers also work in silk. Before colonial times much of the silk came from China. The most elaborate ceremonial cloth is acheik, the hooked wave and houndstooth silk of the Amarapura weavers, worked in a range of colour combinations, mostly for weddings. Royal pasos and htameins of the past were richly embroidered with pearls, gold, silver and precious stones.

Colours, motifs and borders

Men's pasos are usually plain, striped or checked, and can be worn inside out or upside down with no difference. Women's htameins carry more colour and more floral patterns, and have a black calico waistband called a htet sint. For ceremonial wear people bring out their best silks. The most elaborate is acheik, an intricate wave or houndstooth design. Silk was once the cloth of royalty and courtiers, whose garments were worked with metal thread and gems.

How Longyi is worn

A longyi is wrapped around the waist and folded over at the front, so it stays up without a knot. Men make a fold on each side and tie the two together just below the navel. Women use one broad fold at the front, tucking the end at the hip or folding it back into the opposite side of the waist, and usually wear a fitted blouse that ends at the waistband. Hemlines move with fashion but rarely rise above the knee. Men sometimes hitch the cloth up between the legs and tuck it at the back, the way a dhoti is worn, for climbing or sport.

When Longyi is worn

A longyi is everyday dress in Myanmar, worn by men and women of all ages. For ceremonies people keep their best silk. Acheik is worn especially at weddings, where bride and groom often appear in matching colours, and poorer families may set aside a traditional silk for such days. In the past silk belonged to royalty and courtiers, and reproductions of their embroidered pasos and htameins still appear on stage at zat pwès, the theatrical performances.

Styles of Longyi

Regional and ethnic weaves are many: Rakhine, Mon, Kachin, Inle, Yaw, Seikkhun, Dawei, and Zin Mè from Chiang Mai. Men wear a silk paso called Bangauk, or Bangkok, paso on special days, while Kala or Indian pasos tend to be longer and suit taller wearers; kaka zin is a broad black, brown and white check associated with Indian teashop owners. Longyis are usually sold unsewn, though ready-to-wear and skirt-style htameins exist, and durable mercerised cloth from India is popular.

Care and buying

Care is simple because the garment is a tube of cloth: it hangs, presses, folds and stacks without fuss, and takes up very little wardrobe space. Changing is easy too. A person steps into the new longyi and pulls it up while the old one loosens and drops, or draws the new one down over the head. Women change without undressing fully, wearing one htamein while they put on the next.

What Longyi means

Henry Yule, travelling through Amarapura, called pasos and htameins the most important local product and noted how many people the trade employed. Today the longyi is ordinary dress and a marker of identity, with ethnic and regional patterns worn proudly. Its history is bound up with colonial change: the tube replaced older unsewn cloth in the towns first. The old habit of hitching it up for fighting survives in lethwei, and in the folding used by players of chinlone.

Questions people ask about Longyi

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle

• Longyi on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data