Brown and pink silk, and two ducks beside a blooming lotus.
A shawl for a family that begins with two.
Terracotta ducks once stood along the palace roofs at Thang Long as a wish for faithful love and a household at peace. At 44 inches the pair and the lotus fit whole on a silk shawl of brown and pink, soft across her shoulders at a family dinner.
Printed by hand with a Ly and Tran Dynasty motif of mandarin ducks and lotus, this mulberry silk in brown and pink is sixteen momme and hemmed by hand on all four sides.
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.
Is it 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. No size to guess; to compare the squares, see our guide to which size to choose.
How she will live with it
On a pillow, every night There is cloth enough to lay across a pillow instead of tying it around the head, an easy nightly luxury.
Over the shoulders, day to day At the office, on the plane, at a long lunch.
Over a dark dress in the evening Pink against black is confident and warm, and the shawl becomes the outfit.
Brown and pink is the warm, quiet member of the family. For a wedding or an engagement, Green and Pink carries the same drawing in colors seen across a room, and for a wardrobe of navy and denim, Brown and Blue is the easier pair.
Same size, other colorways: Green and Pink · Brown and Blue
In her hands
Mulberry silk begins as a protein fiber spun by the silkworm, and a single cocoon unwinds into one unbroken filament hundreds of yards long.
Lifted, a meter of sixteen momme silk has real weight; worn, it seems to vanish, because the weight rests across both shoulders.
Three details, quietly made
Each one reveals itself over time.
01
Enough cloth to cover a pillow A meter of silk spreads across a standard pillow and tucks beneath it, so bedtime asks for no knots at all.
02
Four hundred and forty centimeters of hand-rolled hem Each of the 440 centimeters of edge on this 44-inch square is turned by hand and stitched into a rounded cord, the longest hem we sew.
03
Printed through both faces Both faces are printed to the same depth, so the ducks and the lotus look as finished on the reverse as on the front, however the shawl falls.
A cutting to keep beside it
The box holds a cutting from the bolt this square was cut from, so the silk can be tested on the scrap while the shawl stays as it arrived.
|
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.
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 →
The making of a $197 shawl
Nearly three times the area of the 26-inch, this square carries 440 centimeters of hand-rolled hem against 260, and both faces are printed, each color laid by hand, screen by screen.
It also takes the place of a pillowcase, a bonnet and a separate wrap, and it does so in silk.
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 |
Pillow cover, shoulder wrap, everyday layer this one
|
The honest split: if you are happy tying something around your head, the 36 does the job and costs less. If you would rather lay it across a pillow and get into bed, this is the only size with enough cloth for that. It is also the only size that carries the composition entire.
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?
Every motif we print keeps its own occasion:
Buying for a couple, or for the family around one An engagement, a wedding, an anniversary or a new grandchild belongs to the mandarin ducks, a wish for faithful love and a household at peace; read more on the mandarin duck wedding gift.
Buying for a person, about who they are For a mother, a new chapter or a recovery, choose Phoenix Dance, the empress's bird, a carved emblem of peace and prosperity in old temples.
Buying for an achievement A promotion or a leader is honored with a dragon, drawn large at the four corners in Dragon Dreams or small and repeated in center symmetry in Dragon of Grace.
The dragon honors a deed, the phoenix a woman, and the ducks a couple and the family who raised them.
Buying this as a gift?
With no size to guess and no season to wait for, it can rest in a drawer, boxed and ready, for whichever occasion arrives.
It comes with a story for her to tell: the pair of ducks once sat on palace roofs, a wish for a family at peace.
For a mother or a mother-in-law, for no occasion Warm brown and pink belong to a woman at the heart of a family, and given on an ordinary day, it tells her she is thought of.
For someone who travels for work In her bag it waits to become a shawl on the plane and a silk pillow cover in the hotel.
For a wedding day itself An engagement or a wedding deserves Green and Pink, the same drawing in the brighter colors of a celebration.
Ducks on the roofs of Thang Long
The story starts high on a palace roof.
At the imperial citadel of Thang Long, archaeologists found roof tiles that carried their own names, the lotus tile and the mandarin-duck tile, so the pair once crowned the palace as a wish for all to see.
Long before the dragons, these ducks were shaped in terracotta; they sat on the roofs of Hoa Lu, the capital before the Ly dynasty, and later crowned the ridges at Thang Long.
A pair of mandarin ducks on a roof was a wish, for a marriage that held and for a household at peace. Beneath them the lotus adds its own meaning: in Vietnamese it grows from the mud yet keeps none of its smell, a picture of grace kept through hard times.
The drawing was redone by hand in our studio from archive photographs of those excavated pieces, separated into screens and printed in Hanoi one color at a time, panel by panel.
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 Slept on nightly or worn at the neck, it wants a wash every few wears, like any silk. 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 Pink |
| 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 pink silk, two ducks and a lotus, for the whole family's story.
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
