A-Luoi Weaving

The A-Luoi tribe in Vietnam practices a long-venerated but fragile textile art…hand woven cloth incorporating beads as design elements. It is woven on backstrap looms by a community of women in villages in the central highlands of Vietnam. The cloth is emblematic of many cultural traditions as more formal and elaborate patterns are sewn into ceremonial dance costumes.

Intricate detailed patterns are created by placing each bead by hand on every weft thread. A 2 meter piece of cloth representing one month’s work could bring forty dollars at the market, but there are limited opportunities to sell it. This has put the time-honored cultural tradition on the endangered textile list. When it goes, so goes the knowledge of how to make it, a skill that has been passed down from one generation to the next for many centuries.

Lantern Moon has used this rich and elaborate cloth to make the A-Luoi tool case and it is a Heritage Preservation Project product, a designation Lantern Moon applies to textile techniques and other artistic forms taught from one generation to the next. Through focused efforts to provide a market for this art, we are hopeful that A-Luoi weaving will be around for many generations to come.

This incredible woven fabric is sewn for us at the Hope Center in Hue, where work and training are provided for disabled men and women.