30/04/2026
I had first come into contact with the Thai Hilltribes when I first came to Chiang Mai in the mid 1990’s. I would often meet Hilltribe women selling their beautiful, colourful embroidery in the famous Night Market and I was very interested in the different tribes, their origins, customs and embroidery.
We started buying their embroidery as we were keen to support their traditional folk art which was in danger of dying out in an increasingly humogenised world.
This led to us visiting different hill tribe villages, so that we could meet the women that actually did the embroidery. They were invariably old ladies and we were keen that the traditional embroidery would pass to the next generation, so we started links to different tribal villages.
The first village that I wsa visting today was a Hmong village, followed by a nearby Akha Village.
The Hmong are one of the most distinctive and widely dispersed ethnic minority groups in Southeast Asia. Originally from southern China, they migrated over centuries into the mountainous highlands of Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar — areas they share with other “hill tribes” such as the Karen, Akha, and Lisu. In Thailand they are concentrated mainly around Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces, living in villages at high elevations.
Hmong embroidery is perhaps the most celebrated aspect of Hmong culture — their textile work is considered among the finest folk art in Southeast Asia. Historically a woman’s skill at embroidery was a measure of her value and marriageability.
Click on the link below to see our Traditaional Embroidered Purses, handmade by the hmong & Akha Hilltribes that I visited;
https://shop.one-world-is-enough.net/One_World_Gallery_Eclectic_Ethnic_Art_and_Craft_from_around_the_World/Hill_Tribe_Embroidery
