Hua Hin Silk Farm and Tailored Suits
Friday, July 14, 2006 8:57:01 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
One thing that I wanted to do when visiting Thailand was have a suit made. I’d heard a lot about how you could have a suit made for £75 which sounded like a bargain to me! There’s a plethora of tailors along the various streets but we’d been recommended the local silk farm/tailor shop which not only tailors your suits but also shows you how the silk is harvested.
It’s an impressive setup, first they show you have the silk is produced using age-old techniques they boil the silk work cocoons1 which entices the work to put out the tiny thread of silk which is then wound together to make a single thread. If I remember/understood rightly the woman said each thread consists of 100 threads from the worms!
Once you’ve been shown how the silk is produced you’re shown you how to tell the difference between the cheap suits and proper cashmere/silk suits. Basically you have to burn the material, if it goes out and smells of hair it’s real though I don’t see Next letting me do that… there are other things to look out for (all of which are present in my current suit collection) but you get what you pay for! The suits should be ready on Monday (2.5days tailor time…)
