Shopping for fabric and supplies in Bangkok

Sampeng Lane in Chinatown is the best place to buy 100% cotton fabric at good prices. If you buy 10 meters or more, you get the wholesale price. It can be 1 meter of 10 different fabrics. Minimum cut, 1 meter. No bargaining, because it’s not a tourist place, it’s a wholesale place. Prices range from 3 meters for 100 baht ($1 per yard) up to 250 baht per meter (about $8 per yard). You’ll find Fabric Center in addition to many other shops, see Sampeng Lane Map. Opening hours are from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm.

The following stores in Bangkok sell 100% cotton fabric. These are all branches of one company, and if you buy more than 2500 baht you get a 10% discount.

fabric from Fabric Center, Sampeng Lane

Fabric House: ground floor Central City, Bang Na, Bangkok tel. 02-361-0570

Fabric House: Central World 2nd floor near Isetan, tel. (662) 255-6152

Fabric House: ground floor Seacon Square, Srinakarin Rd., Bangkok tel. 02-721-8709

Fabric Fashion: 1st floor The Mall 3, Ramkamhaeng, Bangkok tel. 02-310-1020

Fabric Center: 277 Sampeng Lane, tel. 02-222-2460

Tang hua seng is a department store with two branches: one across the river in Thonburi and one on Khao San Road. They sell fabric, fat quarters, batting (white or black), thread, rotary cutters and blades, and craft supplies. I noticed ‘sa’ paper, burlap, terrycloth, and velcro in pink, red, green, black and white up to 4″ wide. Tang Hua Seng is on Nancy Chandler’s Map of Bangkok

Rotary cutters, blades and cutting mats are available at JCC stationery store on Narathiwat Road in the Silom area (business district).
And some small shops:

PINN SHOP mostly crafts and some quilting accessories, 500 shops nationwide including PINN Counter in The Emporium’s Stationery Section and one in Siam Paragon’s Handicraft Section. They have fusible web.

Pretty Quilt Shop in the Oasis shopping center, next to the entrance for the Nichada Thani neighborhood on Samakee Road in Nonthaburi

The Never Ending Threads – The Journey from the Traditional to the Contemporary Weaving of Thailand

On Thursday, June 19 at 10:30 a.m. Khun Jarupatcha Achavasmit gave a very interesting talk about Thai textiles. The lecture was at the William Warren Library, at the Jim Thompson House in Bangkok, and was organized by The Thai Textile Society. Khun Jarupatcha talked about modern fabric designers who bring new ideas to weaving. Traditional Thai weaving in cotton or silk is already intricate and beautiful. Add fabric dye, or digitally print on the fabric, and weave the threads slightly differently, and the fabric becomes modern art.

Khun Jarupatcha is a fabric designer and teacher. The first designer she talked about is Lady Lea Dingjan-Laarakker. Lady Lea combines fabric dying with weaving. She paints the warp threads, which are attached to the loom before weaving begins. She uses environmentally friendly dyes from Switzerland. Lady Lea has a background in western painting and that brings something new to the Thai silk weaving.

Next Khun Jarupatcha talked about Sasiwan Damrongsiri of Chabatik. She works with ikat weaving, also known as mudmee. She does modern things with the motif such as enlarging the scale of the design from 1 millimeter to 1 inch so the design looks different.

Next the talk included Nussara Tiengkeit who has a boutique in Chiang Mai called “Nussara.” Her idea is to create spaces in the fabric for a new effect, by leaving out some threads during the weaving. The new look is so popular that it has been copied and can be seen wherever tourists buy souvenir textiles and wall hangings, such as at the Emporium.

Other modern designers discussed were: Kachama K. Perez, a fiber artist trained in Japan, Kent Gregory of Sop Moei Arts, and Elisabetta Ziller, a 21 year old student from England, who looks at traditional textiles with the question, “Why does it have to be this way?”

The lecture was in English, but with many Thai university students there, we had some questions and answers in Thai at the end, with translation. One question concerned the fact that the traditional weavers are older people. We don’t see many young people at the looms. Does this mean traditional weaving is on the way out? A good answer came from the audience. A university student (a young man) thought that if we are even asking this question, chances are there is interest and it will not die out.

Another student wondered if the beautiful modern art created by these upcoming designers will catch on around the world but be out of reach for the typical local customer who used to use it in daily life. No one had an answer for that one.

Remember Bangkok Fashion City? Bangkok was supposed to be a fashion hub. It was ended by the government in 2006. Khun Jarupatcha had some beautiful clothing in the fashion shows though! One cute dress had a woven geometric print she called “gridlock,” named after the traffic jams in Bangkok.

Currently, Khun Jarupatcha works as part of a design team at Thailand Carpet Manufacturing. She uses leftover yarn from industrial carpet production and hand weaves it into the “Royal Weave” line of carpets. How did Khun Jarupatcha learn to weave? She went to the village of Bang Rai and lived there for two months as a “girl who wanted to learn how to weave.” It all adds up to a passion for Thai weaving that made for a very interesting lecture.