Thai silk

What is Thai silk?

Thai silk is cloth woven in Thailand from the cocoons of two domesticated silkworms. Mulberry silk, from the Bombyx mori moth, is the glossier kind and by far the larger crop. Eri silk, from Samia ricini, is matte and cottony, raised by a few hundred families. Cocoon thread comes in shades from light gold to the palest green, and weavers reel, bleach, dye and weave it by hand. Because each length is hand-woven, none is exactly alike. The finished cloth has a two-tone sheen, one colour along the warp and another across the weft, so it shifts as light moves over it. In the 1950s Thai buyers treated it as cloth for special occasions rather than everyday wear.

Where does Thai silk come from?

Silk weaving began in ancient China and India around 2,640 BCE, and Chinese merchants carried the cloth and the craft across Asia. The oldest silk fibres found in Thailand, at the ruins of Ban Chiang, are more than 3,000 years old, from a site counted among Southeast Asia's oldest civilisations. The Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan, sent to Cambodia, recorded that Siamese settlers there raised their own mulberry trees and silkworms and wove black, patterned silk clothes. On the Khorat Plateau, silk was largely for home use, while the Thai court preferred Chinese imports. An early twentieth-century effort to expand the trade with the Japanese expert Kametaro Toyama failed for want of local interest. After World War II, the American Jim Thompson built a branded 'Thai' silk around new patterns, and the 1951 Broadway show The King and I carried its fame abroad.

How is Thai silk made?

Mulberry silkworms feed on mulberry leaves through their first year, then spin cocoons. Weavers soak the cocoons in boiling water to free the thread inside; a single cocoon holds anywhere from 500 to 1,500 yards of it, in colours between light gold and the palest green. One filament is too thin to weave alone, so women hand-reel many together on a wooden spindle, about 40 hours of work for half a kilogram. Hand-reeled thread comes in three grades, two fine ones for light cloth and a thick one for heavier work. Skeins are bleached in hydrogen peroxide to strip the natural yellow, then dyed and woven on a hand-operated loom. Eri, a staple fibre of short lengths, comes from open cocoons the moth leaves unharmed.

Colours, motifs and borders

The signature look is a lustre with two tones: one colour running with the warp, another with the weft, so the cloth changes as the angle of light changes. Three varieties are protected as geographical indications: Lamphun Brocade, Chonnabot Mudmee and Phrae Wa Kalasin. Phrae Wa, shown to Queen Sirikit at Kalasin in 1977, is the only silk formally honoured as the Queen of Thai Silk, praised for its intricate patterns. The Agriculture Ministry stamps approved cloth with peacock emblems in four colours, gold, silver, blue and green, grading it from hand-woven royal silk down to blends. Eri cloth is denser and darker than mulberry silk and mixes well with wool or cotton.

How Thai silk is worn

Thai silk reaches the wearer as fabric, sewn into whatever garment the owner asks for. Zhou Daguan described Siamese weavers in Cambodia turning their thread into black, patterned silk clothes. In the 1950s Thai buyers mostly kept it for special occasions; it felt costly and too warm for the hot climate, so American visitors became its main customers, carrying lengths home to be sewn. Eri cloth, cool in summer and warm in winter, sits more comfortably against the skin in both seasons. On Broadway in 1951, the musical The King and I dressed its Thai court entirely in the fabric.

When Thai silk is worn

Within Thailand the cloth was treated as something for special occasions rather than everyday wear; through the 1950s most local buyers found it too costly for daily use. Its commercial fortunes were made abroad instead. American tourists kept the silk shops of Bangkok busy in that decade, and The King and I presented the fabric to audiences in the United States in 1951. The monarchy is woven into its standing: Queen Sirikit's 1977 visit to Kalasin and her meeting with Phrae Wa fixed that cloth's repute, and the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles now displays it. The highest certification grade is named Royal Thai Silk.

Styles of Thai silk

The two silks behave differently. Mulberry silk is glossy and spun from one long filament, with fine grades for light cloth and a thick grade for heavy work. Eri, which arrived from South Asia during the 1970s, is a staple fibre with a matte, cottony feel; it is darker, heavier, elastic, and blends with wool or cotton. Certification separates the trade as well: gold and silver peacocks mark hand-woven native and classic grades, blue marks pure silk woven by any method, green marks blends. Hand-woven Thai silk is never identical twice, while machine-made imitation repeats itself exactly. Even the postwar 'Thai' patterns created for export differed from what Siamese weavers had made before.

Care and buying

Genuine Thai silk shows itself in a few ways. Hand-woven lengths are never quite identical, while machine-made cloth repeats itself exactly, and the two-tone sheen shifts as the viewing angle changes. Burned, real silk smells like singed hair and goes out once the flame is removed; imitation smells of plastic and keeps burning. The Agriculture Ministry's peacock emblem certifies approved grades, four colours from royal to blend.

What Thai silk means

Silk farming supports a wide rural economy. In 2013 the Queen Sirikit Department of Sericulture counted 71,630 small landholders raising mulberry silkworms, besides 2,552 industrial-scale farmers, while eri silk rests on about 600 families in 28 provinces. Kasetsart University's silk centre researches sericulture, the farming of silk, and supplies growers with silkworm eggs and guidance. Yet Thailand is a small presence in world silk: its exports were a fraction of one percent of global production, and most of the cloth stays at home. Three varieties, Lamphun Brocade, Chonnabot Mudmee and Phrae Wa Kalasin, hold Geographical Indication status, a legal shield for local weavers' identity.

Questions people ask about Thai silk

Good reading and sources

• Geographical Indications: An Introduction, 2nd editionWIPO, Article

• Thai silk on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data