Craft village · Lụa và thêu tay · Silk & hand embroidery

Vạn Phúc

Làng lụa Vạn Phúc — the silk village of Hà Đông

Twelve kilometres south-west of the centre, Vạn Phúc has loomed silk since the eleventh century. The village gave its name to the finest cloth of the north — <em>lụa Hà Đông</em> — and in a few houses the wooden looms still run, slower and softer than the powered ones on the main street.

Wide view of a Vạn Phúc weaving house, a wooden hand loom with wine-red silk on the beam, pattern cards hanging, soft window light, hand-loomed silk village, Red River Delta, Vietnam

“The loom is the loudest thing in the house and the gentlest.”

Twelve kilometres south-west of the centre, Vạn Phúc has loomed silk since the eleventh century. The village gave its name to the finest cloth of the north — <em>lụa Hà Đông</em> — and in a few houses the wooden looms still run, slower and softer than the powered ones on the main street.

Craft: Hand-loomed silkLụa
Where: Hà Đông, Hà Nội12 km from Hà Nội
Practised since: c. 11th centurySilk for the court since the Lý
Material: Mulberry silkLoomed by hand
On LangSoul: 1 artisan2 works

01 — The story

A thousand years at the loom

The silk of Hà Đông was a line in poems before it was a thing you could buy. Vạn Phúc is where the line was made.

Archive black-and-white photograph from the mid-twentieth century, faded and grainy: the wooden loom in Vạn Phúc, hand-loomed silk, villagers in simple work clothes, old brick and timber

The silk of Hà Đông was a line in poems before it was a thing you could buy. Vạn Phúc is where the line was made.

By tradition the craft was brought by a woman from the north, honoured now as the village’s patron. By the Nguyễn court it was supplying the palace; in the twentieth century it dressed Hà Nội’s long tunics, and the phrase áo lụa Hà Đông became a way to say elegance.

The main street is lined with shops and powered looms. Behind it, a few families still weave by hand on wooden looms, in patterns their grandparents cut — and it is that cloth, loomed slowly and dyed in the village, that Quất Động’s embroiderers ask for and that we carry.

Hands on a wooden hand loom, shuttle passing through wine-red silk, in a Vạn Phúc weaving house, a wooden hand loom in window light, mulberry silk, deep wine red and ochre

A hand lifting dripping silk from a small plant-dye vat, wine-red water, in a Vạn Phúc weaving house, a wooden hand loom in window light, mulberry silk, deep wine red and ochre

02 — The technique

What makes Vạn Phúc silk

The hand loom gives the cloth a weight and a drape the powered looms cannot.

I

Hand-reeled thread

Silk is reeled from the cocoon in the village and twisted by hand.

II

The wooden loom

Slow, loud and even: a metre a day of the finest cloth.

III

Patterns cut in the village

The damask patterns — chrysanthemum, cloud, the character for longevity — are the village's own.

IV

Dyed in small vats

Colour is laid in small batches, so a bolt is never quite the same twice.

Words you will meet

Lụa

Silk.

Lụa Hà Đông

The silk of Hà Đông: Vạn Phúc's cloth, and a phrase for elegance.

Vân

The damask figure woven into the cloth.

04 — Works from Vạn Phúc

Two works from the village

All silk & hand embroidery works

Scarf, hand-loomed silk

Vạn Phúc workshop

$140

Silk length, chrysanthemum damask

Vạn Phúc workshop

$240

All silk & hand embroidery works

Map · Hà Nội → Vạn Phúc

05 — Visiting

Come and hear a loom

Vạn Phúc is close enough for an afternoon: a hand-loom household, the dye house, and tea. Collectors who have acquired a work from the village visit as our guests.

From Hà Nội: About 30 minutes by car
Best season: All year
Group size: Six people at most

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