The Natural Dyeing Techniques of H’Mông Tribes in Vietnam
The H’Mông women push swathes of fabric into tubs of bubbling blue dye, swirling them to make sure every woven edge is covered.
After a minimum of 30 minutes, with hands tinted deep indigo, turquoise and violet, they fish the wet cloth out of the bath, wring out the pieces and hang them to drip-dry in the open air. The longer the fabric is mixed in with the dye, the darker it will become. Eventually, the cloth will oxidize into a distinctive blue—the recognizable cobalt of blue jeans.
As the fabric dries on lines hanging outside their thatched-roof homes, the women carry on with their many daily tasks from childcare, to farming to gathering firewood.
Their hands are often deeply lined from decades of work, permanently stained as bright as bluebirds from the repetition of tinting the indigo cloth over the years.
After a communal meal of sticky white rice and stir-fried vegetables, the women go back to their color baths. Their background music is that of a rural village: children at play, livestock shuffing down the dirt paths, roosters crowing. The smallest children, still too young to wander of with their brothers and sisters, peer with curiosity around the skirts of their grandmothers into the frothy vats of blue.
The traditional handspun clothing that the H’Mông wear for special occasions and, in some villages, daily life, is tinted a blue that is so dark it becomes black. The method—dyeing, hanging, and drying—must be repeated twice a day for one month to achieve this color. Depending on the subgroup of the H’Mông—Black H’Mông, Flower H’Mông, Striped H’Mông, Red H’Mông etc.—the cloth used on the women’s garments is then embroidered with bright stitching while the men’s clothing is left simple and somber.
For some tribes, the deeper the blue the more prized the cloth becomes. Some say that they can tell when a bolt of cloth is finished just by the depth of color present on a woman’s hands.
INDIGO LEAVES AND HEMP HARVESTING IN VIETNAM
High up in the hills above Sapa, the tribes still make the traditional dye out of the leaves of the indigo plant that are indigenous to Vietnam.
WHY SHOULD BUYERS
FAVOR NATURAL INDIGO DYE OVER SYNTHETIC?
Sustainability is a word that has been used (perhaps overused) a lot over the past five years. Sometimes, it is added to a product description as an afterthought, simply to target a certain clientele that tries to be more conscientious about their “footprint” on this earth. There is even a word for this practice of fake environmentalism – “Greenwashing”.
Yet, when it comes to companies that “bluewash” by falsely claiming they use natural indigo dyes, they are risking more than just bad publicity.
In this case, sustainability stands for the preservation of the environment as well as the communities who practice these age-old traditions.
In regards to the environment, when natural indigo dye is made the leaves can be used as fertilizer after the dye has been extracted and the water can be used to irrigate crops. Synthetic indigo dye, in contrast, is made from petrochemicals which leave behind hazardous chemical waste.
In some of the rural villages where indigo dye has traditionally been harvested, the techniques for how to craft the traditional tribal costumes are not being passed down to younger generations. In some cases, the entirety of the knowledge is held in the minds and hands of the eldest women in the communities, many over the age of 80-years-old.
Purchasing authentic, handmade indigo-dyed fabrics can give long-lasting employment opportunities to the ethnic groups living in Vietnam as well as maintaining their motivation to continue teaching the process to their children and grandchildren. The styles and methods may change and evolve over time in order to stay relevant but preserving the H’Mông crafting techniques is also a way to protect their cultural heritage.
A VOYAGE BECOMES A PASSION
When I first visited the H’Mông in North Vietnam, I was inspired like many before me to photograph them because of the otherworldly finery of their garments and headdresses in contrast with the rural world surrounding them. Now, I’ve returned close to a dozen times to the different villages in the area, each time with a purpose in mind – to document the tribes, their traditional crafting techniques and to honor their heritage.
While working on my fine art photography series entitled Indigo Collection, I spent countless hours with the H’Mông women kneeling along with them next to the pungent vats of dye, listening to their bright conversations and easy laughter. They became a part of my world, and I theirs.
When they paused from their work to prepare a meal or to offer me a cup of tea, I loved watching their hands tinted with the remnants of indigo carrying out these simple household tasks.
In my Precious Heritage museum located in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hoi An, there are examples of the H’Mông costumes preserved next to the portraits from each tribe.