Brown and blue silk, two ducks meeting under one lotus.
A quiet shawl with a long love story in it.
At their anniversary dinner she lays a silk shawl of brown and blue across her shoulders, and in the lamplight two mandarin ducks meet beneath an open lotus. The colors are quiet and the drawing tender, and its meaning, a wish for a marriage that holds, goes with her wherever the square goes.
Mulberry silk in brown and blue, printed by hand with a Ly and Tran Dynasty motif of mandarin ducks and lotus, at sixteen momme and hemmed by hand on all four sides. It wears as a shawl, a wrap or a scarf that behaves like a garment.
16 Momme
5A Grade
2 Sides printed
We pay the import duty, not you.
Nothing owed on arrival, nothing added at checkout. Free US shipping at this price. Sent from Hanoi, most US orders land in 9 to 15 business days.
Buying for someone else? Two things before you read any further: it ships from Hanoi, so allow 9 to 15 business days to a US address, and it arrives gift boxed with your note written by hand and no price anywhere in the parcel. Nothing needs fitting, and our guide to which size to choose compares every square.
Where she will wear it
At her desk Thrown once over the shoulders, it rests there all day, as composed as a jacket and far lighter.
On a plane It takes almost no room in the bag, and after a long flight it still looks lovely across her shoulders.
Over a dark dress in the evening Brown and blue over black separate into two deliberate layers, and the shawl becomes the outfit.
Folded to a triangle on an ordinary day Thrown once around the neck with the ends long, it is how a 44 is worn when there is nowhere to be.
Brown and blue is the quiet member of the family. For a wedding or an anniversary meant to feel like an occasion, Green and Pink carries the same drawing in brighter colors, and for a gift about her alone, Phoenix Dance is the motif to choose.
Same size, other colorways: Green and Pink · Brown and Pink
The feel of a meter of silk
Mulberry silk is a natural protein fiber, spun by the silkworm, and each cocoon unwinds as a single continuous filament hundreds of yards long.
A meter of it feels substantial in the hand and light once it is on, because sixteen momme spreads its weight across the shoulders instead of pulling at the neck.
Three details made to last
Each one shows in the way it wears.
01
Sixteen momme at 44 inches Sixteen momme lets a meter of silk fall in one soft line and stay on a shoulder through a long meeting or a longer dinner.
02
Four hundred and forty centimeters of hand-rolled hem Around this 44-inch square run 440 centimeters of edge, each one turned by hand and stitched into a rounded cord, our longest single run of hemming.
03
An edge built for daily handling A square carried every day is handled constantly, and the hem is where that shows. Here the cloth is turned into itself before it is stitched, so there is no raw edge at all, a slower way to make a hem and a kinder one for a square that travels.
The silk cutting in the box
A cutting from the same bolt lies under the tissue, so the silk can be tested at home and the shawl kept whole.
|
Mulberry silk |
Polyester |
| Held to a flame |
Burns |
Melts |
| The smell |
Singed hair |
Acrid, like plastic |
| What is left |
Soft ash, crushes between your fingers |
Hard bead, sticks |
If you try it: over a sink, clear of anything that can catch, not with children in the room. A corner is enough. It is a home check, not lab proof.
The silk is tested at the Textile Testing Center, part of the Vietnam Textile Research Institute, an independent body, not our own lab.
Add to bag and check it yourself →
What makes up $197
This is nearly three times the area of the 26-inch, with 440 centimeters of hand-rolled hem against 260. Both faces are printed, so the whole meter passes under the screens twice, one color at a time, and a mixed brown beside a clear blue asks for careful matching at every pull.
Where the office cardigan, the carry-on pashmina and the evening wrap each do one job, this single square of silk does all three. Carried three times a week over five years, the cost settles at about twenty-five cents a wear.
What size silk scarf should I buy?
| 22 in → |
Wrist, bag handle, narrow twilly roll · $75 |
| 26 in → |
Headband, ponytail, neck knot · $97 |
| 36 in → |
Full head wrap, sleep wrap, all the 26 does · $153 |
| 44 in |
Shoulder wrap, everyday layer, and the size the whole composition fits on this one
|
If the reason you are here is a layer rather than a scarf, this is the size and nothing smaller will do it. A 36 covers a head; only a 44 sits across two shoulders. It is also the only size that carries the composition entire - everything smaller is a cut from the same drawing.
Getting it there in time
If there is a date attached to this, it is worth reading before you order.
Nine to fifteen business days to a US address, counted from the day it leaves Hanoi.
For Christmas delivery in the US, we recommend ordering by November 27.
Ship it straight to her. Sending it to yourself first and forwarding it adds a week you do not need to spend. We write your note by hand and there is no price anywhere in the parcel.
If the date is fixed, write to us at Folkformint@gmail.com before you order.
Which motif should I be looking at?
Each of our motifs belongs to a different moment:
Buying for a couple An engagement, a wedding or an anniversary belongs here, and in this colorway the meaning is worn quietly: two mandarin ducks, a wish for faithful love and a household at peace. Our journal tells the story of the mandarin duck wedding gift.
Buying for a person, about who they are A mother, a new chapter or a recovery calls for Phoenix Dance, the empress's bird, which temple carvers set on beam ends as a sign of peace and prosperity.
Buying for an achievement For a promotion, a leader or a corporate gift, the dragon is the motif, in two versions: Dragon Dreams sets large dragons at the corners like a picture, and Dragon of Grace repeats the animal small in center symmetry.
The dragon marks an achievement, the phoenix honors a woman, and the ducks belong to a couple.
“Where would I actually wear something this big?”
Over the shoulders, indoors This is the everyday way to wear it: thrown once, ends long, at the office, in the cinema or at a restaurant table.
Folded to a triangle, day It goes corner to corner and once around the neck with the ends hanging, a generous and easy volume.
Belted as a light layer Over the shoulders and belted at the waist, it wears like a garment after a little practice.
Evening Over a dark dress, thrown once, it becomes the outfit.
The illustrated guide in the box has more than twenty ways, most of them for exactly this size.
Buying this as a gift?
Keep it in a drawer, boxed and ready: with no size to fit and no season to wait for, it is always the right gift when an occasion appears.
And when someone admires it, she can say: they are mandarin ducks, set on the palace roofs of old Hanoi as a wish for a faithful marriage.
For a wife or partner, for no occasion at all A gift that means faithfulness, given on an ordinary evening, says more than any anniversary card.
For someone who travels for work It rides folded in her carry-on and comes out on the plane, in the hotel lobby and at the client dinner.
For someone whose taste you are still learning Brown and blue is the easiest pairing here to love, soft and composed with almost any wardrobe.
For an occasion that should feel like one For an engagement, a wedding or an early anniversary, Green and Pink is the same drawing in brighter colors that announce the day.
The mandarin ducks on the palace roof
The motif began on a rooftop, and that is the loveliest part of its story.
When the imperial citadel at Thang Long was excavated, roof tiles were found named for what they carried: the lotus tile and the mandarin-duck tile. Set along the palace roof, the pair was a wish made visible to the whole city.
Shaped in terracotta and set along the ridge, these ducks are older than the dragons; they already graced Hoa Lu, the capital before the Ly dynasty.
Mandarin ducks keep to their pair, so two of them on a roof were a wish for a marriage that held and a household at peace. The lotus beneath them adds its own meaning: in Vietnamese it grows from the mud untouched by it, an image of keeping your character through anything.
Our studio redrew the pair by hand from archive photographs of the excavated pieces and separated the drawing into screens, and every color is printed by hand in Hanoi, one screen and one pass at a time.
The box, the care, and the returns
In the box A rigid gift box and matching bag · the square folded in tissue · a story card naming the motif and its dynasty · an illustrated styling guide · a care card · the silk cutting. Nothing left for you to wrap. Sending it straight to her? We write your note by hand and keep the price out of the parcel.
Washing Easier than people fear, and less often. Silk sheds dust on its own, so every three to five wears is plenty. Cold water, shampoo or body wash rather than laundry detergent. Squeeze, never wring - and with a meter of cloth, lift it out supported rather than letting the weight of the water pull on one corner. Dry flat in shade, never in sun. Iron on the lowest silk setting while still faintly damp.
Returns Thirty days from delivery, unused and unwashed, in the original box. If the fault is ours, a flaw in the silk, a print error, a seam that failed, postage goes both ways on us and you get a replacement or a full refund. Changed your mind? Thirty days, return postage yours, and if you take store credit instead of a refund we add fifteen percent. One condition: it comes back unused, unwashed and unworn, in its original box.
Specifications
| Material |
100% Grade 5A mulberry silk |
| Color |
Brown and Blue |
| Motif |
Uyen Uong Lien Ha · Lotus Serenade · Ly and Tran Dynasty |
| Source |
Mandarin duck ridge-tile figures, Thang Long and Hoa Lu |
| Weight |
16 momme |
| Size |
44 × 44 in · 110 × 110 cm |
| Print |
Hand screen-printed, double-sided |
| Edges |
Hand-rolled, hand-stitched · 440 cm |
| Testing |
Textile Testing Center, Vietnam Textile Research Institute |
| Made in |
Hanoi, Vietnam |
Brown and blue silk, and two ducks beneath one flower.
A shawl that carries a wish wherever she goes.
Sixteen momme, printed through both faces, 440 centimeters of hem rolled by hand in Hanoi. It arrives gift boxed - or plain, if you ask.
Add to bag · $197
Free US shipping on orders $90+ No customs fees 30-day returns
