Why Lotus Silk Is So Expensive | So Expensive

lotus silk is one of the rarest fabrics in the world produced only in small scale across cambodia myanmar and more recently vietnam this natural fibre is only extracted by a few skilled crafts people across the world but making this silk isn't easy extracting enough lotus silk for one scarf can take two months and the final product can cost 10 times as much as regular silk so just how is it made and what makes it so expensive fanteethwan's family have been making silk for generations growing and harvesting the threads from silkworms themselves to create luxury garments but making lotus silk is different silk usually comes from silkworms they're kept on wide trays and need to be fed almost 24 hours a day with mulberry leaves the caterpillars delicately spin threads to create their cocoons and it can take hundreds of silkworms to make a kilo of silk but while the insects require careful looking after they do most of the hard work themselves the key difference between the bright yellow silk and the paler lotus version is that every single strand of lotus silk must be extracted from each thread of lotus silk starts with the stem of the lotus flower the lotus is vietnam's national flower and a plant that's grown across the country while this fabric has been made for years in myanmar fanti tuan only started experimenting with this fiber in 2017. but once the stem is selected and picked by hand the silk inside can be extracted each stem contains a minuscule amount of thin sticky fibers which must be rolled together and dried the threads need to be processed within 24 hours while they're still wet otherwise they'll break and so harvesting has to be done each day and the lotus plants are only available to harvest between april and october once you've gone through the hard work of extracting these vipers they're incredibly delicate too [Music] much [Music] once dried these threads are carefully weighed down and delicately hand spooled then they're put into the loom these fibers are fragile but once woven can be as durable as traditional silk fan has a team of 20 workers creating these fibers each day allowing them to produce 10 to 20 scarves each month but when a 25 centimeter scarf can sell for just over 200 the hard work is worth it the final product is unlike any other fiber it's soft like silk breathable like linen and slightly elastic these luxurious traits have made it popular with tourists searching for rare souvenirs it's also recently been picked up by international fashion brands searching for a new luxury fibre but its scale has been limited as there is still few trained in the making of these silk threads but despite the work involved fanti thuan is hoping that this skill could one day grow to become a larger industry foreign you

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 29,926,427

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, Lotus, Silk, Cambodia, Vietnam, Craft, so expensive

Id: S9F-u4T7leQ

Length: 5min 40sec (340 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ReyRey5280]

TIL lotus silk is a thing...neat!

[u/DukeInBlack]

The most uplifting thing is the competence and acume of the lady that manages and leads the production.

She could probably sit in any major company board of directors and be a very valuable addition to any company focused on production.

She is the real deal.

[u/Weshnon]

Am I the only one disappointed the end fabric is not more refined/lustrous?

[u/MelonElbows]

The video didn't say why she fed a handful of corn kernels to a pile of freshly harvested silk...

[u/Mr_Dugan]

I bought a lotus silk scarf when I visited Inle Lake in Myanmar. Super cool stuff.

[u/Herban_Myth]

Thank you for the enlightenment.

[u/Northern-Canadian]

Wow; a video on here that actually taught us something and wasn’t really a disguised advert.

[u/maunzer]

did they say where one could by a lotus silk scarf in the US?

[u/Itukanami]

Where can I buy one or look at a finished product? Really interested in this and help would be appreciated