Can LALEDA make a dress from Thai silk I bought myself?

Yes. Plenty of clients arrive with a few metres they fell in love with at Jim Thompson or a market. We check the width and quantity, tell you if you need a little more, and tailor it into a dress, blouse or jacket. Bringing your own cloth is always welcome.

Is Thai silk too hot to wear in Bangkok?

Real silk breathes better than most people expect. A lighter one or two-ply Thai silk, cut with a breathable lining, is comfortable for evenings and air-conditioned events. Heavy four-ply silk is warmer and better kept for structured pieces and cooler rooms.

How much Thai silk do I need for a dress?

As a rough guide, two to two and a half metres for a blouse, three to four metres for a dress, and a little more for a gown with a full skirt or sleeves. Thai silk is often woven narrow, around one metre wide, so you usually need more length than with wide European cloth. We confirm the exact amount once we know the style.

How do I care for Thai silk?

Dry clean, or hand wash gently in cool water with a mild detergent and no wringing, then dry in the shade. Keep it out of long stretches of direct sun and press on low heat from the back. Treated well, Thai silk lasts for decades.

What is the difference between Thai silk and Chinese silk?

Thai silk is usually heavier, with a slightly irregular, slubby weave and a two-tone shimmer because the warp and weft are often different colours. Chinese and Indian silks tend to be smoother and lighter. Neither is better, they simply suit different garments.

Where to Buy Thai Silk in Bangkok (and How to Have It Tailored)

Thai silk is one of the few fabrics worth crossing the city for. Woven from the cocoons of mulberry silkworms, the good stuff has a weight and a faint two-tone shimmer that machine-made satin never quite manages. Here is where to find the real thing in Bangkok, how to tell it from the tourist version, what to pay, and how to turn a few metres into something you will actually wear.

What counts as real Thai silk

Genuine Thai silk is reeled from mulberry-fed silkworms and woven, often by hand, in the north-east of the country. Three things give it away. It has body and a little weight, not the flyaway thinness of cheap polyester satin. The surface carries fine, slightly uneven slubs from hand weaving, rather than a flat, perfectly uniform face. And it shimmers in two tones, because the lengthwise and crosswise threads are often dyed different colours, so the cloth shifts between, say, gold and green as you move.

Silk is sold by weight, or ply. One and two-ply silks are light and fluid, lovely for blouses, scarves and soft dresses. Four-ply is dense and structured, the kind of cloth that holds a clean A-line skirt or a jacket. Most occasion dresses sit happily in the two to four-ply range.

Bolts of Thai silk on display in a Bangkok fabric shop

Where to buy Thai silk in Bangkok

You can buy Thai silk at every price point in Bangkok, from polished flagship stores to dusty market stalls. These are the places we point clients to most often. For the wider fabric picture, our full guide to buying women's fabrics in Bangkok covers the markets in more detail.

Jim Thompson

The icon, and a safe place to start. The flagship on Surawong sells beautifully finished silk by the metre at premium prices, with reliably high quality and a huge colour range. If you want the same cloth for less, the Jim Thompson factory outlet carries surplus and home-furnishing weights at a fraction of flagship prices, well worth the trip if you have an afternoon. Either way you are getting the real thing, no guesswork required.

Sampeng Lane and ChinaWorld

Chinatown is where Bangkok buys fabric wholesale. Sampeng Lane is a narrow, crowded alley packed with textile stalls, and the ChinaWorld mall nearby is calmer and air-conditioned. This is the spot for variety and value, with prices that drop if you buy a few metres and bargain politely. Quality is mixed, so it rewards a careful eye, but the range is unbeatable.

Pahurat (Little India)

A short walk from Chinatown, Pahurat is Bangkok's Indian textile district. It leans towards bright colours, embroidered and embellished silks, and sari fabrics, with plenty of silk blends mixed in. If you are after a statement piece with a bit of sparkle or detail, this is a rewarding place to dig.

Weekend markets and OTOP silk

For genuinely hand-woven silk at honest prices, look to the weekend markets and provincial OTOP stalls. Chatuchak Weekend Market has dedicated silk vendors, and the OTOP fairs that rotate through Bangkok bring hand-woven cloth straight from Surin, Khon Kaen and Khorat. This is where you find real mudmee (Thai ikat) with its blurred, tie-dyed patterns, if you are patient enough to hunt.

How to tell real Thai silk from fake

Tourist markets sell a great deal of polyester labelled "Thai silk", so a few quick checks save disappointment. Price is the first clue: real silk is rarely very cheap. Feel is the second, as silk warms to your hand while polyester stays cool and slippery. Then look for the two-tone shimmer and the faint slubs of a real weave.

The reliable test is the burn test, which reputable shops will happily do on a loose thread for you. Real silk burns to a soft, crushable ash that smells of burnt hair and stops burning once you take the flame away. Polyester melts into a hard plastic bead and smells chemical. If a stall refuses to test a single thread, treat that as your answer.

What Thai silk costs

As a rough guide, lighter two-ply silk from Chinatown or the markets starts around 300 to 600 THB per metre, good hand-woven silk runs from roughly 700 to 1,500 THB per metre, and premium brand silk or intricate mudmee climbs higher. Remember that Thai silk is usually woven narrow, around a metre wide, so budget for a little more length than you would with wide European cloth. Even so, a dress's worth of beautiful silk is usually a few hundred to a couple of thousand baht, far less than imported wool or branded suiting.

Turning Thai silk into something you'll wear

Buying the cloth is the romantic part. Getting it cut well is what makes it wearable. At LALEDA we tailor Thai silk into blouses, dresses and jackets, and we are happy to work with silk you bought yourself. Because Thai silk is narrow and can fray, it wants a tailor who will match the grain, finish the seams cleanly and line it so it sits well and stays comfortable in the heat.

Bring your fabric, or come empty-handed and choose from the bolts at the atelier. Either way, you can see exactly how we work before anything is cut. We have been dressing women in Bangkok from beautiful cloth since 1989.

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