Wouldn't it be great to have a selection of sinhs like this easily available in the states!? Since our online store opened four months ago there has been a demand for more fashionable silk sinhs that can be worn to weddings and celebrations. On our last trip to Laos (Dec 2008) we bought 30 sinhs that we'll be adding slowly to this collection in several price ranges, with some including matching silk scarves. They're gorgeous and selected by Bai and her sister Bouasai, a master weaver with Taykeo Textile Gallery.
When we were in Laos in December 2008 we worked out details for custom ordering sinhs from Vientiane for our customers. The process would be that the customer would tell us what color/pattern they wanted in a sinh and then our staff in Vientiane would take photographs of sinhs matching the requirements of the customer and send them to us. We would forward the photos to our customer and cost of the sinh(s), including shipping costs from Laos. The shipping costs would be a minimum of $50, but that's still a bargain compared to flying to Laos! If a customer chose one or more of the sinhs they would make a down payment (approximately 50%) and we would pay for the sinh and have our staff ship it to us where we would inspect it, notify our customer that we received it, and then upon payment of the balance of the order, we would ship the sinh to our customer.
We've done this several times all ready and it's worked out perfectly. We understand there can be potential concerns of "trust," but if you check out our FAQ section and read the testimonials of our customers, you will see that the textiles they receive are always more beautiful than they thought they would be. Never has anyone been disappointed.
We love all the other types of sinhs we offer on our site, and hope that we can begin a movement of Lao women and girls wearing sinhs on a more regular basis. Bai wears sinhs about sixty percent of the time here in Sacramento, and we've never seen anyone else wearing a sinh outside the wat. We're told that in other parts of the country Lao women do feel more comfortable wearing sinhs and wouldn't it be nice to see some American women begin wearing sinhs too? They're such a beautiful and artistic expression of Lao culture and we can't think of a better way of promoting Lao culture. Bai gets asked all sorts of questions, and she loves being able to tell people about how the sinhs are handwoven, made out of silk and what some of the motifs mean.
We are also glad to custom order sinhs and you can read more about the process in our blog post
here.
