Discover Why Lotus Silk Is So Expensive and Its History

The process of making lotus silk makes it the most expensive fabric in the world as it is extracted and woven by hand completely. The lotus silk is woven in the heart of Myanmar and it is made for years. Lotus silks are produced only on a small scale across Cambodia and Vietnam. The process of making this silk is not easy. It is totally different from the normal silk process.

Why Lotus Silk Is So Expensive?

Within How Many Hours the Lotus Threads Need to Be Processed?

A. 24 Hours
B. 20 Hours
C. 18 Hours
D. 16 Hours

First, the stem of the lotus is selected and picked by hand, then the silk inside the stem is extracted safely by hand. Each stem contains a little amount of sticky & thin thread-like fiber and the threads need to be processed within 24 hours while they are wet otherwise, it will break. And the harvesting process has to be done within one day.

After rolling and drying the thread, it has to be slowly weighed down and hand spooled. This fiber can be only extracted by the few skilled craftsmen people across the country. Extracting silk for one scarf takes nearly one or two months and the final product can cost up to 10 times as normal silk.

Lotus silk in Vietnam is not obtainable so easily as the lotus plants are harvested only between April and October. The Lotus silk fabrics are created from the wild silk and linen-like yarns extracted from the thousands of finest fibers of the lotus stem. Even Though these fibers are fragile, once it is completed the Lotus silk fabric is the best durable silk than traditional silk.

Lotus Silk Vietnam

The Phan Thi Thuan family from Vietnam has been making silk for generations. They harvest the threads from the silkworm themselves to create luxury garments. She started experimenting with lotus fibers in 2017 to create a lotus silk fabric and now Vietnam is widely known as lotus silk Vietnam because of her.

The lotus silk fabric has all the qualities that one could wish for in a fabric: it is very light, breathable, water repellent, cool in summer and warm in winter, and does not wrinkle. Hence it has been so popular among luxury brands and traits. Lotus silk fabric has recently been picked by international fashion brands as one of the rarest fabrics.

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