KHMER NEWS TO ENGLISH: Located in the Cotton Forest District, Ta Keo Province, which is famous for weaving quality Khmer silk, the sound of beating echoes at a handicraft factory, where the weaving women in this community specialize in hand-producing silk one by one.
For 4 years in establishing SouKabas Cambodia, Ms. Khuy Chansu, a weaver in Takao Province, has been working hard to uplift the Khmer weaving community to support local raw materials, provide jobs to artisans and maintain the tradition of producing heritage textiles in a market full of product price competition.
In 2021, Ms. Chansu established a cotton handicraft, changing the name from Cambodian Weaving, which has been in business since 2017.
Khmer silk is not yet widespread due to the high cost of handloom products and the difficulty of competing with large quantities of factory products imported from neighboring countries.
The founder of Cotton Crafts, Ms. Chan Su, told Phnom Penh: "As I observe that day by day, weaving is gradually decreasing and the quality is also not as good as before, and as a weaver's child who has completed my undergraduate studies, I need to have an idea to help my local villagers."
She dropped other jobs to focus on a single weaving business to fill in the gaps to make this community weaving craft run smoothly.
She used her knowledge from the university to market Khmer traditional weaving products and hoped that by providing jobs at the weaving workshops, she could attract villagers from factory work and migration to contribute to Khmer silk production.
I have been gathering the villagers to re-weave silk to promote housewives to be employed and able to earn an income so that they do not continue to migrate."
Adhering to the vision of "inventing new ideas, conserving, ancient heritage is not outdated, not foreign", Ms. Chansu sells a wide selection of both traditional products and trendy recyclables."
Apart from Hol Phamung, Sukabas also produces fashionable silk bags, eco-bags, daily-use silk, traditional, and types for religious ceremonies.
Ms. Chan-su confirmed from the ceiling: "Weaving silk one fiber at a time, over the months, becomes the canvas of this rare story."
The 33-year-old woman added: "There are two types of silk towels that I weave every day, namely towels, silk towels, and silk towels, but besides silk towels, I also make towels, yarns, fabrics, pahums, and there are also Khmer knuckles that are made into hair ties for the trendy youth."
For the price, the hand-woven silk phamung is only $190 per 1 cup, and a hand-woven silk bag, and Khmer handmade leather for $95.
A small silk towel with a width of 5 meters and a length of 1.8 meters costs $35 and a large size with a width of 1.2 meters costs $45.
The artisan claims that Khmer silk has a unique feature that distinguishes it from neighboring countries by the production starting from raising the worms directly, weaving the silk into yarn, and weaving it out into silk.
Therefore, Ms. Chansu is worried about the price of the product due to the influx of expensive products, which affects the price of Khmer silk.
She mentioned: "As the son of a cotton forest weaving artisan, with a spirit of love for conservation and development in the form of the original inheritance of the ancestors of the local weaving artisans, I do not agree with taking Khmer to sell cheap copies and distorting the original inheritance, which leads to confusion among the next generation."
Ms. Chansu further mentioned: "I am very hurt when they copy Khmer handlooms sold freely, it really affects the Khmer handloom market, what is important is the economy of the weavers themselves, each one weaves with a big heart, seeing them sold all over the market and Khmer using all over the territory, it seems to be the head of the Khmer weavers."
Apart from calling on the relevant authorities to help increase the value of local silk and tighten the market for replica silk products that are gradually killing the Khmer market, she has also participated in the preservation of Khmer silk heritage as well as actively participated in the exhibition of local products, the Khmer Textile Fair.
The artisan, who is the son of a weaver in this cotton forest district, is committed to helping to preserve Khmer weaving to have a stronger name, especially by creating his own raw materials such as cotton yarn and Khmer silk, and compiling a Khmer weaving book that talks about weaving from ancient times to the present.
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