A finely woven skirt of the Tai Dam, or Black Tai, an ethnolinguistic group historically centered in northwestern Vietnam and neighboring Laos.
The skirt is constructed with a broad field of nearly black indigo-dyed cotton above a richly decorated lower section of multicolored stripes and intricate geometric patterning. The contrast between the restrained upper body and vivid hem is characteristic of Tai Dam textile traditions, in which the lower portion of a skirt often carried the greatest concentration of symbolic and technical ornament.
Among the motifs are stylized birds, rendered within a dense vocabulary of geometric and vegetal forms. Birds appear frequently in Tai ceremonial textiles and can carry associations with the spirit world and movement between earthly and supernatural realms. In Black Tai skirt traditions, bird imagery also appears alongside water dragons, ritual trees and funerary architecture, forming part of a broader cosmological visual language.
Bright embroidered accents in pink, orange, purple, green and yellow animate the otherwise tightly structured design. A striking mid-century textile that combines the austerity of deeply dyed indigo cloth with an exceptionally lively and symbolically rich decorative border.
Size: 3'3" x 1'10"
Age: Mid-Late 20th CenturyÂ
Origin: Northern Vietnam / Laos
Type of Textile: Tai Dam (Black Tai) skirt textile (sin)
Material: Woven in cotton with supplementary patterning and silk embroidery
Condition:
Â
Good. Wear to embroidery threads, some staining, small hole and repaired spot
Â
TX717
Â
