The Dzao people live and breathe ethical. In the West, we are trying to re-find a way of wearing clothes that don't cost the earth. The Dzao have been doing it for centuries in the most beautiful way. The Dzao make their own clothes. They make them with pride to show off their skills and their identity. Every year a Dzao woman will make themselves a new set of clothes. A pair of trousers covered in embroidery and a jacket with the finest tail piece, sleeve embroidery and a panel of embroidery on the back. The embroidery is their finest tradition. It enables them to identified as Dzao. When they go to the market, when they are on...
In the 8 year time period that I have known the Dzao their lives have catapulted from an ancient world with no electricity in their homes, access to only local foods, mostly all homegrown and raised, handmade clothing and a completely independent cultural community with their own practices and beliefs. To the modern Asia, internet, smartphones, washing machines, rice-cookers, education, an intertwined community with modern Vietnam and hunger for money. Sapa is one huge construction site, Taphin too. Everyone here is trying to make a buck. Hotels, shops, tour packages, more. The desire for a modern (plastic, shiny and fantastic) world is rife, everyone wants it. Everyone wants change, everyone wants to have more. It is ferocious and extraordinary...
Kids are absolutely central to Dzao culture (alongside embroidery). Usually babies are born at home with the help of the mother- in-law. This, for most, sounds nightmarish, it perhaps is.. "the first is always most difficult!" Tamay would say to me. Women just seem to do it. Just as we all do, but here though there are no books, no fancy gadgets, no worries. Babes are held close, so close for months. They are never put down. They are either on mumma's back, or on someone else's back or being played with by mum or grandma or auntie or dad or grandpa or the shop keeper or an old friend. They are never left alone, not until they can...
All of the cotton and indigo used to make our jackets is homegrown, without pesticides. The plants are grown from seeds, harvested and then used to make the cloth and the colour. It is an ancient process done in the same ancient way. Tamay goes on her motorbike to buy the cloth directly from the producers. It is a 3 hour journey from Taphin village where the jackets and the embroidery are made. The whole year, in Tan Uyen village, is based around the cotton, indigo and rice. In spring time the cotton seeds and rice grains are sown. The cotton is fast growing and is handpicked in July. It is then stored until the following March for the dry...
Embroidery is central to Red Dzao (Dao or Mien) culture and Taphin village. In Taphin the Dzao women have some of the very best embroidery skills in the world. To be good at embroidery makes you a good and strong woman. The embroidery of the Red Dzao is a series of patterns that have been passed down from generation to generation. It is counted stitch work, meaning the stitches are precisely made by counting the warp and weft. The smaller the warp and weft, the more tiny the embroidery is, this is considered the most beautiful embroidery as it is the most difficult to sew. The technique has never been written down. It is culturally held knowledge that depicts everyday...
