Silk from Thailand

Ban Reng Khai is a village in the north-eastern region of Thailand known as "Isaan". Formerly silk weaving was a means to supplement the meagre income from agriculture. The knowledge and skill of preparing silk yarn and weaving fabric is a craft passed down through many generations. Economic reality and lack of work opportunities locally forced younger villagers to seek work in mostly Bangkok as unskilled workers. This cycle over several generations led to the loss of the silk weaving skill in the village, whose people survived on money sent home by the absent youngsters.

The knowledge and skill of preparing silk yarn and weaving fabric was a craft passed down through many generations. The dry soil of north-eastern Thailand is excellent for growing mulberry trees. Silk worms thrive on the leaves of these trees creating the strong Sen-Hua and Sen-Lue silk yarns essential to the durability and quality of the silk fabric produced by the craftsmen of Ban Reng Khai.

In 1985 Ms. Lea Laarakker Dingjan, a Dutch artist and textile specialist, recognized the surviving potential of the villagers’ weaving skill and the commercial potential for high quality silk fabric. She devoted herself to raising the necessary funds enabling the villagers to revive their craft and then established new markets and direct sales methods for the silk in Thailand and abroad.

The high quality silk fabric produced in Bang Reng Khai, in combination with Ms. Lea’s designs incorporated into the finished garment and accessory products, is marketed as Lea Silk. This organization is essentially a non-profit enterprise producing and selling a stunning array of hand made silk fabrics and silk products from the location of the foundation, in a suburb of Bangkok.