Product Story
Hmong batik is one of the oldest textile art forms in the world.
Over a thousand years ago, the Hmong woman started painting with hot melting wax on the fabric before putting them in indigo dye and removing the wax afterward. This wax-resist dyeing technique offers immense possibilities for artistic freedom as patterns are applied by actual drawing.
Hmong people do not have their own written language. In the centuries of solitude and illiteracy, the Hmong expressed their way of living, emotions, feelings, legends, and history through their textile art. It became a kind of visual art that can be read, and such poetic visual language blurred the traditional boundaries between literature and art.
Pattern Description
Long vertical flag of Rongjiang Hmong people, copper drum, and fish pattern. This newly produced long flag is made of traditional motifs, and its uniform hand-painted lines and figures show the high accomplishment of the artisan.
Who Made Your Product
A scene of a sacrifice event. People wearing fine costumes and playing traditional musical instruments are worshiping the ancestors and gods in front of the temple, praying for good weather, abundant crops, and peace and joy.
Wang Yaolile, 86
“Isn’t that nice, beautiful people?”
Having painted batik - a skill every Hmong girl got from their mother - for 80 years and worked in batik workshops all around the region, Wang Yaolile (a Mandarin transliteration), our oldest artisan, certainly has wisdom. Her wrinkled face is always smiling, and she’s always teasing us in broken Mandarin: “Isn’t that nice, beautiful people?” and giggles like a child when hearing our affirmative answer.
During her worldly experience in different batik pattern style workshops, she could skillfully manage various Hmong tribal styles.
Product Details
- Size: 55cm × 55cm | 21“ × 21“
- Fabric: 100% cotton
- Dyes: Indigo
- Made by: Wan Yaolile
- Due to the nature of handcrafted goods, slight variations are embraced