Jacket

Description

cotton fabric, indigo blue dyed, loose fitting jacket, the sleeves sewn with colourful stripes of fabric, the back area elaborately embroidered, sewn with buttons, small silver metal discs and seeds, colours slightly faded in some areas;
presumably coming from the Akha or Hmong, hill peoples, living in the border triangle of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. The Akha came from the borderland of Myanmar and Yunnan to Southeast Asia, where they settle in northern Thailand, Laos and Vietnam today. The Miao are an indigenous people of China, living in the forested hill areas in the South of China. Some groups of the Miao moved to South East Asia, here they are called Hmong.
Akha women spin cotton into thread with a hand spindle and weave it on a foot-treadle loom. The cloth is hand dyed with indigo.