Hmong Clothes

In Laos, when our parents grew up, their parents made cloth from hemp. Even when we were still in Thailand, we watched our moms and grandmas and great-grandmas make the cloth from hemp. They made the threads from the hemp plant. When it was ready to peel, they cut it and brought it home and peeled it. After, they put it on a wheel and spun it. Then they dipped it into all these colors, like black, hot pink, hot green, hot orange, bright blue, hot yellow, and a yellow-green. They boiled the flower petals to get the colors they wanted.

For one kind of Hmong skirt, first there is a black part colored with indigo. Then they make designs with wax. It takes two or three weeks to do that. Then they make the bottom from a very long black cloth with holes in it. They make a design in the cloth with red thread and add a second color like white and make white color on the outside. Then they choose another color that they want and make more designs so there are no black spots left.
Hmong women in Winona use a piece of material and pull the strings out of that material to make a piece of thread from seven or eight strings. We use the thread to decorate the cloth. We make triangles and diamonds by cross-stitching and add beads or sequins to make it shine. We use this to decorate cloth for the arm bands,the borders of the jacket, sashes, the panel for the front of the skirt, or for hats.
Hmong clothing is very cool, neat and beautiful. We wear Hmong clothing to New Year's. The mothers have to sew new outfits. The men wear black pants. The women's clothing is a blouse tucked into a skirt. The striped Hmong's jacket is black and blue on the arms. There are two lines on the front of the jacket. The White Hmong's skirt is white. The original Green Hmong wear batiked skirts.
We Hmong come from different areas that's why we all wear different kinds of clothing for New Year's. Our clothing is very colorful and we have beautiful designs on it. It's a special way to remember our culture.