Mỹ Nghiệp

Mỹ Nghiệp is a Cham village in Ninh Thuận, close to Bàu Trúc and a short way from Phan Rang. Cham weaving here is old, and the cloth has long been part of Cham life: clothing for daily wear, sashes and shawls, and textiles for weddings, funerals and the ceremonies at the temple towers. Women weave, and girls traditionally learned at home, sitting beside their mothers until the patterns became familiar.

Today the village weaves on two kinds of loom. The narrow backstrap loom, tensioned by the weaver’s own body, is used for the most traditional pieces, and larger frame looms are used for wider cloth and for the bags, scarves and runners that are sold to visitors and shops. Commercial cotton and synthetic yarns with chemical dyes are now common, and plant and mineral dyes are kept by fewer weavers. A cooperative and family workshops in the village show and sell the work. A single wide piece can take a weaver many days, and complex patterns are slower still, which is worth remembering when comparing prices. Most weavers fit the work around farming and family.

Good Mỹ Nghiệp brocade has dense, even weaving with tight selvedges, and patterns that line up across repeats without drift. The traditional motifs, including flowers, diamonds, dragons and stylised temple towers, should be crisp. Natural-dyed cloth has softer, slightly uneven colour, and it is worth asking which you are looking at.