Laos's Incredible Silk | SLICE | FULL DOCUMENTARY

[Music] our story takes place in Laos a small country in Southeast Asia it's the story of a family who fled the country from one day to the next it's the story of a man who who grew up in France and who returns to the land of his childhood it's the story of this man who aged 30 followed in his grandmother's footsteps and who learns to weave as one learns how to walk it's the story of Anu who weaves silk and who is gradually going to untangle the threads of his life Anu is a textile designer working in interior decoration in the space of a few years he has established a workshop which sells its exceptional silks around the world Paris London New York his Creations are today used and admired by the leading decorators I've checked everything it's all perfect you can send it his Fabrics have names like palm tree Monsoon or Flur the shampy they are inspired by the creations of his grandmother which have fed his imagination since childhood and which gave him the taste for Laos but he had to come a long way before creating his own textile Workshop Anu was born in Laos into an aristocratic family in 1975 when the Communists came to power the monarchy was a prompting The Exodus of more than 10% of the population anu's family was among those who left he was 4 years old Anu was raised in France by parents who refused to even utter the name La the whole family left in a hurry with very few [Music] belongings they thought it was really just a crisis that would last a few months or maybe years but my grandparents never went back none of them in Paris Anu worked at the ministry of culture for his 30th birthday against his parents' wishes he bought a roundtrip ticket for La he never used the return ticket and has lived there ever since not long after arriving in vientian I was wandering the city streets and I saw a majestic house I immediately felt a sort of Attraction it was like the call of a siren and that same evening I called my mother and told her what I'd felt I described the house and she said if you find a gravestone that's where my great aunt is buried I thought it was a sign and I knew I was going to stay in [Music] Lous I've always been fascinated by textiles My grandmother used to weave she created fabrics and my mother would wear them all the [Music] time I'd spoken to my grandmother about my wish to take over a textile company and my grandmother told me if you really want to get into textiles you have to track down a man called Pang the master of my workshop so for days and days I traveled the countryside I asked everywhere do you know Pang he's a weaver I got lost I came face to face with a man to ask him the way and when he saw me he said you look like someone I know you look like your father and you look like your mother and I knew you when you were little and I realized it was Pang oh hello hello it's been such a long time and that was the second sign telling me to stay in Laos P was the head of the workshop where anu's grandmother worked more than a simple textile worker Pang was a close family friend he kept the two looms that belonged to anu's grandmother oradi when she fled the country orati belonged to one of the biggest families in the Kingdom she used to make cloth which dazzled the queen her Diplomat husband was a private adviser to the king during an official visit she discovered the silk makers of Leon and Drew inspiration from them to enrich her own creations she now lives in Australia far from the banks of the makong I knew embarked on the path of textile making aided by Pang who was his mentor for several years P helped me a lot he taught me to weave he taught me to put patterns on a warp and he made me understand what's involved in weaving coloring dying spinning silk and all that on my grandmother's old looms ever since the 14th century weaving has been an integral part of the culture in Laos fueling trade with its powerful neighbors China Vietnam Thailand and Cambodia it was introduced Overland from from the north and spread via the country's main artery mother of waters the [Music] makong textile making has been enriched by the contributions of many ethnic groups with different languages and Customs this is part of a weaving tradition that goes back a thousand years weaving has a dual function for clothing but also to give these ethnic groups and identity through motifs and colors the arrival of the Communists in power in 1975 undermined this tradition although in the 21st century it is being [Music] revived to further his knowledge and find new Weavers Anu takes a trip to the north of the country cradle of LA's textile tradition he is accompanied by ping the head of his Workshop hello how long is the thread 42 M 42 M that makes 6 M by 7 could we do that in the workshop no I don't think so why not it's difficult when you have to pull the thread it's not tight enough no but our Weavers have to use all their strength here they do it [Music] differently cloth in the north is characterized by a single color and complex geometric designs Stripes diamonds zigzags animal and plant motifs each Motif has its own meaning stripes for nobility the diamond for knowledge and the Naga a fabulous animal with the body of a serpent shown with one or two heads which is the all powerful protector of La source of all life hello did you make this fabric yes I did can you explain the different motives to me of course what does that represent that's the dco motif do it's like a hook or a key yes that's right like a hook or a key the colors were done with plant dyes which ones this green is made from Indigo mixed with mango wood you soak the cotton threads in it and then rinse it a lot and how long did it take you to make this sto I take on average a bit over two days two days okay if I weave without interruption I can do it in one day one store per day it depends on my daily chores what would you like to do weave between daily chores or become a professional Weaver it depends often it's hard to organize my day the field is a long way and it takes me a long time do you sell your stores I'd like to earn a living from weaving without having to do other things you to weave and sell your fabric is that right oh yes like all of us Anu modernizes these geometric motifs from the northern regions in his Workshop in venan he weaves them in silk on a larger scale there's already a centimeter of length just in the repetition of motifs which means if the motif is repeated 15 times it will make a difference of 15 cm so when we make a piece of cloth that is 3 or 3 and 1 half M long we'll have 15 or 20 cm of difference depending on the repetitions in fact they're a lot less concentrated on their work there's too much going on around them the children the hens the rice harvest the cooking the kitchen Garden they lose the thread of weaving and therefore concentration so for us it's going to be a real challenge for us to make it work I really like this fabric I really like these women and I'd like to be able to collaborate together but on a much more professional basis [Music] fore [Music] spee [Laughter] Anu do you want to try no thanks how's it going Pang I'm practicing let's have a look she's doing very well don't compliment her that's not the right thing to do not at all [Music] foree spee speech your hands are all blue don't worry it's fine it's true they're all blue when I give the rice to the children they're scared they don't want any really are they scared and yet if you wear Indigo it brings good health it kills diseases really there's no bacteria no it kills diseases and insects okay thanks very much it was a [Laughter] pleasure I met some very endearing people in this Village uh for example the woman doing the Indigo D is totally absorbed by her art she explained how she uses sunflowers to keep away evil spirits to protect her jars of indigo and make sure the dye produces nice colors I was really very surprised to see that all this tradition of cotton growing dying and weaving is done by women [Music] on the eve of anu's departure the villagers hold a ceremony called Basi in his honor [Music] [Music] the whole soul of L is encapsulated in this ceremony it involves naming the 32 Souls associated with each part of the body and which tend to diffuse dozens of cotton threads represent wishes which are tied around the wrists of guests each forms a visible and invisible link with the other venan is the capital of Laos its local name is viangchan which means city of Sandalwood or city of the moon this tranquil image is today contradicted by the intensity of the traffic and the same kind of economic growth that has been seen in many cities across Southeast Asia for 14 years Anu has lived in the cisat tanak quarter not far from the meong he chose to set up his Workshop in his house for more than a decade he has pursued his passion to create a unique line of silk Fabrics reinterpreting old patterns some of which have been lost for more than 50 [Music] years I saw reproductions of the past but no renewal so I immediately had the idea of making these laosan textiles more modern and ultimately I'm picking up the story that my grandmother began 55 years ago she had to leave it all behind so it was a way of paying tribute to her to begin a textile Adventure again one of Creation in the 1950s his grandmother used to supply the silk Boutique verasa in Paris today Anu finds in Thailand the exceptional quality of silk thread that meets his standards [Music] [Music] sh textile is the marriage of the head the thread and the Hand it's the coming together on a loom of threads arranged on a vertical axis the warp threads and those on the horizontal axis the WFT drawn through with a shuttle slowly the Weaver draws the motif on the warp threads using a knife like a pen The Motif is transferred line after line bamboo after bamboo on the headle told me 12 battens are missing so we have to remove eight when I apply the designs we put them on small 20 cm looms first and then we transfer it over to a 40 cm or 45 cm wide piece to check everything is okay and when we put it on a loom that is 128 CM wide we have to respect the span the arm span of the Weavers them are more than 1.6 M we weave on 128 CM Loom which is extremely wide because you have to allow for the passage of the shuttle and the movements of the body it's like a [Music] ballet on this Motif myow which represents a palm leaf there are 110 batons to hold each level so 110 levels so it needs to be lifted 220 times to have a full motive so we had to sacrifice some of the complexity we had to remove eight lines so the women could work comfortably the compromise was to make a beautiful design but without there being any difficulty for weaving so the weaving could be close to perfect traditionally in Laos weaving is done on narrow looms for scarves that are worn in the temple and the bottom of skirts but to meet demand from decorators Anu weaves wide pieces Pang takes care of quality control which ensures our excellence and means our products are practically faultless she has a very hard life I hide her as my cleaner to begin with I learned to weave with my mother when I was a little girl I was eight or nine my father died when I was 16 I had to leave school and stay at home to weave sins traditional laan skirts and sell them at the market is she coming I could tell she wanted to evolve over time she took over quality control and now she's my director of production in fact she's in charge of everything in this company we work together like a family everyone has to get on because we eat work and drink together if we encounter a problem we can talk about it it's not like there's a boss and subordinates it's more familiar in laan culture whether it's within the family or business it's important to recreate a sort of family unit within the company [Music] no [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] spee [Music] foreign fore spe is in a sheltered spot near the workshop Anu creates his own colors laian recipes are passed on orally so when he learned dying Anu carefully noted down all his experiments on little pieces of paper thus mastering the Alchemy of colors to obtain beige number 21 called Dark beige they mix boiled onion skins diluted with ebony which is mated for 6 months with lime and Ash it's a disgusting putri action that stinks with worms floating about in it but it will produce a beige with gray nuances going from silvery to dark gray how's it going today wi it looks tricky yes it's a bit difficult it seems like the color is bleeding yes a little why don't you add a little iron I already have the color isn't [Applause] true it's too dull I don't understand what can we add some onion it's a pleasure to see all the colors which have been made during the day and be able to see all the collections on display there are certain colors that we don't use often and when we do a special order obviously we see them again it's as if they're Reborn and then in my head I can imagine other combinations of colors I like that sound sounds like snow we use lots of plant dyes and certain dyes can develop fungal growths or bacteria to kill these bacteria and fungi I have to put the silk skin in the freezer for about 3 to 5 days before using the silk there are some beliefs which are absurd yet are at the same time understandable the ders cannot do their job on holy days and there are four in the month they believe in dreams in Superstition I had a DI who wouldn't work when he had nightmares you can't ignore this kind of belief you just have to accept it and juggle with these different factors no one has ever been able to explain to me exactly why you can't die on holy days the people of Laos are animists they live in a spiritual world if a leaf Quivers it has a meaning when rain falls at a given moment they try to understand why they believe in ghosts and beneficent Spirits at the entrance to the house Anu has a shrine dedicated to the protective Spirits the fee for each ceremony the shaman who acts as messenger between the human and spirit world gives offerings of rice flowers water and incense among the offerings the orange of the Indian carnations Echoes the color of the Monk's robes in Laos Shamanism and Buddhism have always played a major role in daily life communism has never managed to undermine this faith that is deeply anchored in the laian mentality Anu built his faith over the years that he spent in Laos when he moved there his mother insisted that he have a Buddha every Fortnight he offers it a tray of nine fruits selected according to the rules as long as he looks after it his Buddha will protect him from evil [Music] spirits [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] the Fabrics made in anu's Workshop combined handw weaving and contemporary design to achieve Excellence requires an exceptional level of craftsmanship that requires attention to detail and great patience it's also a team effort so I create the motive I sketch it on a piece of paper I explain it I pass it on to a person who transcribes it onto the loom with all the constraints of the warp and weft then we have to adjust it to obtain the real proportions and the design I've got in my head to make the most complex motifs the Weavers produce just 6 cm of cloth per day in Laos you really have to learn to be patient you have to learn to look at [Music] people because when I first arrived it's true I was quite impatient I was raised according to the French or european Western model and we have a certain impatience we want everything to be immediate by contrast the Lans really look at the here and now we're weaving today we're weaving tomorrow that's the way it goes there's no notion of time we can't make them say 1218 they'll say a little after 12:00 there's also this notion that I've totally banished from my workshop it's the centimeter and a bit the approximation near enough will do well obviously I'm exaggerating I don't punish [Music] them but they're not allowed to say to me 2 cm and a bit they have to say to me or Pang it's 2.8 CM 13.3 precisely they have to I don't understand understand why these two samples are different look here the motifs are different why is this width different to that one how many centimeters are there from here to here it's wider The Motif is bigger because we removed part of it here it's 2 cm and here it's 2.3 CM so it's wider it's not the same thing you'll have to start over we'll look at it again tomorrow we'll use the same thread it's pretty now what do you think and this Motif is nice too I'm not criticizing you I'd just like to understand what always amazes me with Weavers is that they have a very mathematical mindset and they work on a binary basis they learn to weave at the age of 10 or 12 so it's obviously become second nature for them when I show them a sketch they can tell me straight away if it's feasible if I really want it I can sit at the lum do it and then I understand and sometimes I regret it it can take days they try to find a solution it's easy to reproduce something but creating something new isn't I think that's when you see what a good Weaver is made of those who really want to do something new those who really have a vacation and who take weaving to the level of an art I try to follow the evolution I know that those are the first because we did that on a black warp and then there are 1 2 3 4 5 6 seven eight nine versions which took six weeks of design on that pattern it's only really when you get into it and read the motive line by line that you understand why there are changes it's a question of modifying until you find a sort of balance that only I can understand there's a sort of form that I wanted a certain abstraction on this Motif whereas there's a very strong image of a Naga but drowning it in the pattern so that you just get a suggestion of it and then in the weaving you can see it and then you can't and I took it up to the nearest Stitch and then I stopped at the ninth version that one we kept there was a second one we made this line thicker compared to this one we kept the little dots the serpent which is still [Music] here there's a part we refined there's this bit there and this we made Solid and then we added a line in the middle to make the image uh denser Anu is putting the final touches to his latest collection imagining names which convey the designs Pang helps him find the right name which evok LA are we're going to give a name to these two motifs the first will be Jasmine flower and the second Motif will be yucka flower what do you think you think we could call this motive sanak like our neighborhood four naggers four serpents we should note these names to send some to the UK to France to [Music] America all the agents should have large and small small samples in four colors CE CC the quality is incredible um you can't find anything like it it's something extraordinary your colors are amazing and that's what everyone whenever I show the samples to anyone they just go oh my God I love this there's no one who said that they don't like it oh wow yeah everyone loves it good everyone yeah I'm happy which is yeah me too me too it's uh it's just yeah it's going from one step to another step moving up there MH but I'm working on the new collection right now so you see you see new things designs excuse me yeah yeah uh new designs and you're going to see uh more colors I will try to get them to you before the 20 the 18th of December which is in 10 days yeah there's a dialogue which develops between the interior architect the project manager the client and myself to be able to create a panel for a window for a sofa or a cushion that will be part of the decoration of a house when you think that a panel like that a sample that you send like that which will end up in a designer Studio folded up at the bottom of a drawer that's 3 days weaving and that's what can be a bit painful at times when I go and visit the decorators and I say to them where's the fabric I sent you last week and they answer I don't know we'll have to find it and they fetch out a big cardboard box and fish it out from the bottom all screwed up as if it was a piece of rag that really hurts but in the end it's fascinating to know that you can achieve an incredible result that could end up in a magazine or in the home of clients like um Michael Bloomberg or Jennifer Aniston people like that it's really fabulous to know that a little workshop in Laos with just 10 people can produce interior decor for Hollywood stars it's really great in the center of yansan stands the misai temple which belongs to anu's family the remains of his ancestors lie there when Anu arrived in La people were always asking him who were his parents for the man in the street although he was born in La he remained a foreigner after all these years Anu is gradually piecing together the puzzle the family textiles la [Music] me [Music] I think I'm going to stay in Laos for a very long time I feel as if there's an objective here it's true that when I used to work in France life was good I had a good job a nice lifestyle but here I feel more complete there's a sort of spirituality I've also got the impression of finding the RO Bo which were missing when I was little there were lots of things unsaid with my parents due to their situation so that leads to a feeling of getting back to one's Origins I feel more complete here I also have the impression that I'm finishing a job that my grandparents had started because my grandfather was extremely attached to Laos he was attached to France too my grandmother admired France but her life was also here the fact that they left in 1975 they were totally uprooted from La like me that leaves an absence an emptiness and I think you have to feel that emptiness at some point or another I think my grandmother is proud I think she's very touched in fact I know she's very touched I visit her once or twice a year depending on my availability and on each occasion I spend some memorable moments with her she's pleased to know that I took up a craft that she had to abandon and that she can relive the past through my Fabrics one thing that I find really amusing is how she takes out her magnifying glass she's 91 years old but she rummages in her bag and takes out her magnifying glass and she has a good look and tells me there are no stray threads and nothing wrong that's just great being in Laos allows me to be more laian Laos has brought me a lot patience slowness and above all a calmness I think there's a real ESS in people's eyes a smile that is truly natural and it's that slowness which allows you to do some amazing textile work I couldn't have found that anywhere else [Music]

Channel: SLICE

Views: 60,950

Keywords: documentary, documentaries, shortdoc, shortdocs, slice, slicedocs, laos, slik, fashion

Id: JRoxFBdIXtg

Length: 50min 15sec (3015 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024