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When I was in Vientiane, Laos a few years ago I asked the concierge at the hotel I was staying at where I could go to buy Laotian handmade products. The first place I was told about was Carol Cassidy's Lao Textile Studio. It is located three blocks from the Mekong River in downtown Vientiane.

Carol has been working with textiles and fiber art for many years. She studied weaving and textile design in Norway and Finland and earned a B.F.A from the University of Michigan in 1980. After receiving her degree Carol worked as a fiber/textile expert in southern Africa. On a CARE project, she trained women in Lesotho to produce handspun mohair yarn, suitable for export. Later, on a rural development project for the United Nations, she applied her expertise to setting up sustainable cottage industries for women in rural Lesotho, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

In 1989, Carol moved to Laos to work as a weaving advisor on a United Nations International Labor Organization (UN/ILO) project at Lao Cotton. She trained weavers to use Swedish looms and monitored quality control for 210 village based weavers. Carol was also asked to design commerically viable fabrics to be woven by Lao Cotten and to oversee the production process. On her visits to rural women's homes, she was very impressed by the technical skills of Lao weavers. This, in combination with her discovery of extraordinary antique textiles in local markets, prompted her to make the decision to establish an independent weaving studio in Vientiane.

A new business is started

In 1990, Carol registered Lao Textiles, one of the first privately owned businesses in Laos. Her goal was to demonstrate the commercial viability of creating textiles based upon tradiiton for a modern world market. Applying her own weaving and design experience, she wanted to work with local craftswomen to produce high-quality fabrics that drew upon traditional motifs and colors combined in innovative ways. She began with a thorough analysis of selected antique pieces to understand the weaving techniques, the colors, the motifs and the pattern layouts. After weaving exact replicas, she slowly moved to designing broader interpretations of traditional works.

Challenges to be overcome

The first three and a half years were filled with challenges. One of the first to be confronted was the difficulty of obtaining high quality, locally produced silk. Sericulture, the raising of silkworms and the spinning of silk yarn, has a long history in Laos. However, the production of silk declined during the war torn years of the mid-twentieth century. A desire to revive locally produced, high quality silk and a scarcity of local suppliers prompted Carol to help establish a new source. In 1992 she started working with the director of the Lao Sericulture Company in Xieng Khouang and Houaphan provinces in northern Lao to increase silk production. Lao Textile now has a vast network of silk suppliers from these provinces.

Experimentation with new patterns and color palettes occurred. Carol developed her own dye recipes and now has more than 1000 recipes for the luminous colors found in her silks. The weavers were reluctant to produce new combinations of colors and pattens based upon the traditional motifs and techniques of the different regions of Laos. Carol also found her potential clients expected wider and longer fabric lengths than were being woven in Laos. To meet these expectations Carol merged elements of the traditional Lao loom with the Swedish loom she was familiar with to develop a hybrid version which has now become popular with other local weavers. Convincing her weavers to accept these innovations and to work to the highest standards of quality took time, however, she gradually won them over.

The impact of Lao Textiles

Carol estimates that some five thousand people are in one way or another connected to and benefiting from her studio's product. Along with the more than 500 familes supplying silk yarn to the studio, there is the specialized group of artisans that builds the looms and makes the reeds, shuttles and other equipment needed for weaving. The studio itself employs 32 full-time weavers and another 18 employees responsible for the dyeing and winding of threads and finishing the textiles, including tying and twisting the fringe, once the weaving is completed.

At the studio you will find large, elaborately woven wall hangings to irresistibly beautiful scarves and shawls and small decorative cloths. High-end custom home furnishing fabrics are developed for interior designers in the West. Carol Cassidy and her Lao Textiles weaving studio have had a strong impact on the preservation of Lao textile traditions. She has shown that a market exists for the finest Lao textiles and has encouraged weavers to be proud of their profession as a source of income and as an expression of both their personal skills and their country's heritage. Inspiring others to use their skills and local materials to preserve and sustain their weaving traditions is of primary importance to Carol. She has now started a weaving studio in Cambodia and works with a group of weavers who are landmine survivors.

If you are in Vientiane I recommend you stop by Lao Textiles. I can guarantee you will find something wonderful to bring home with you.