The soul of silk

Leaving Hong Phong commune, my uncle and I went to Nam Cao silk weaving village in Kien Xuong district. This is a craft village over 400 years old, and the only place in Vietnam and the world with the unique technique of hand-spinning silk yarn. In 2023, the village was also certified by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism as a "Silk Weaving Craft" and included in the list of National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The first place my uncle visited was the family of artisan Nguyen Dinh Dai, over 60 years old, in Cao Dat Doai village. He is the fourth generation in a family with the oldest traditional silk weaving craft in Nam Cao. He said that the people of Nam Cao village still spin silk threads by hand, a technique that no machine in the world has been able to replace. This technique can utilize even broken cocoons that cannot be spun into silk, spinning and twisting them to create silk threads. Currently, Nam Cao silk does not use discarded cocoons, but only clean and beautiful ones. After spinning, the threads go through 20 manual steps to create a fabric with sufficient softness and drape.

Mr. Dai's father was the one who sought to "learn" from neighboring weaving villages and invented the loom, creating a unique weaving technique for Nam Cao village, instead of just supplying silk and raw materials as before . Through many upgrades, the looms now have added motors and run semi-automatically, helping to increase productivity and reduce the hardship for weavers. Nam Cao's fabrics were once exported to France and Europe, and now to Thailand and Laos, and are focusing on exploiting the domestic market, incorporating them into fashion designs and everyday products for Vietnamese consumers.

Although both originate from silk fibers, raw silk fabric has distinct characteristics compared to pure silk. While pure silk is soft, smooth, and can be mass-produced by machine, raw silk is rougher and is only produced by hand . Because the fibers are hand-spun, raw silk is porous, making it warm in winter, cool in summer, easy to wash, and quick to dry.

At first glance, raw silk fabric may not seem appealing, but the more it comes into contact with the body, the softer and more lustrous it becomes. Besides its applications in fashion, raw silk also has medicinal benefits such as antibacterial and fire-retardant properties thanks to the natural characteristics of silkworms. Raw silk fabric is becoming increasingly valuable, as it has become a precious material sought after by the sustainable fashion industry.

Heritage Magazine