Lotus silk ( my, or my, , ) is a type of

textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

produced using delicate lotus stem fibers. The fabric first originated in

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

(Burma), and is now also woven by smaller-scale cottage industries in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. Due to the complexity and labor-intensive nature of weaving lotus fibers, lotus silk is considered one of the most expensive fabrics in the world. In Paw Kone, seda de loto 1

Burmese lotus silk uses fibres from a specific variety of lotus called '' padonma kya'' (ပဒုမ္မာကြာ), which produces large, fragrant pink flowers. The lotus stems are sourced from

Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the Endonym and exonym, endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. ...

's Inle Lake, and throughout Myanmar, including

Mandalay Region Mandalay Region ( my, မန္တလေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Mandalay Division) is an administrative divisions of Myanmar, administrative division of Myanmar. It is located in the center of the country, bordering ...

( Sunye Lake in Sintkaing Township);

Bago Region Bago Region ( my, ပဲခူးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Pegu Division and Bago Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the southern central part of the country. It is bordered by Magway Region ...

(Inma Lake in

Thegon Township Thegon Township is a township in Pyay District in the Bago Region of Burma.

);

Magway Region Magway Region ( my, မကွေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Magway Division) is an administrative divisions of Myanmar, administrative division in central Myanmar. It is the second largest of Myanmar's seven divisions, ...

( Wetthe and Salin Natural Lakes in Salin Township);

Sagaing Region Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lon ...

(Kandaunggyi Lake in

Taze Township Taze ( my, တန့်ဆည်) is a town in Shwebo District, Sagaing Division in Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English althoug ...

). In

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Bijiyashanti Tongbram Bijiyashanti Tongbram (born 1993) is an Indian female entrepreneur from Manipur. She uses lotus stems to make small mufflers and stalls. Her efforts have attracted the attention of many people, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and ...

(28) from Thanga Tongbram village located in the Bishnupur district of

Manipur Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of Myanm ...

makes fibers from lotus stem gathered from the

Loktak Lake , image = , caption = Different scenes of the Loktak lake of Manipur , alt = View of Loktak Lake and Phumdis , image_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , location = Manipur , coords ...

, then she spins this yarn into scarves, stoles, neckties & other apparels.

History

Lotus silk weaving originated in

Inle Lake Inle Lake (, ), a freshwater lake located in the Nyaungshwe Township of Shan State, part of Shan Hills in Myanmar (Burma). It is the second largest lake in Myanmar with an estimated surface area of , and one of the highest at an elevation of . D ...

in Myanmar's

. Lotus weaving was invented by an ethnic Intha woman named Sa Oo in the village of Kyaingkhan in the early 1900s. She first wove a Buddhist monastic robe using lotus fibers, called ''kya thingan'' (ကြာသင်္ကန်း), as an offering to the abbot of a local monastery, and offered similar monastic robes to the principal Buddha images at Phaung Taw Oo Pagoda. The tradition of robe-weaving has a long history in Myanmar; during the

Tazaungdaing festival The Tazaungdaing Festival ( my, တန်ဆောင်တိုင်ပွဲတော်, also known as the Festival of Lights and spelt Tazaungdine Festival), held on the full moon day of Tazaungmon, the eighth month of the Burmese calendar, ...

, robe-weaving competitions are held throughout major

Burmese pagoda Burmese pagodas are stupas that typically house Buddhist relics, including relics associated with Buddha. Pagodas feature prominently in Myanmar's landscape, earning the country the moniker "land of pagodas." According to 2016 statistics compiled ...

The weaving practice went extinct after her death, and was subsequently revived by her relatives, Tun Yee and Ohn Kyi, who began a cooperative to modernize and systematize the weaving practice. In 2003, Samatoa Textiles, led by Awen Delaval, revived the practise in Siem Reap, Cambodia, by harvesting the Nelumbo Nucifera Lotus in Batambang Lake, making the threads, & weaving the fabrics, all accordingly to the traditional methods. In 2017, Phan Thi Thuan, a weaver near Hanoi, introduced the weaving practice to Vietnam.

Uses

Lotus silk was first used to weave monastic robes as an offering to Buddha images or Buddhist monks, but is now also used for a variety of clothing types, including scarves and hats.

Loro Piana Loro Piana is an Italian company specialized in clothing and textile products. It is considered the largest cashmere manufacturer and the world's leading artisan company processing luxury fibers.Miles Socha and Luisa Zargani (28 October 2021)Loro ...

, a luxury clothing company, has imported Burmese lotus silk to produce jackets and other clothing products since 2010.

History

Uses

References

See also