Myanmar Lotus Silk Scarf

Lotus silk is pulled — by hand, stem by stem — from the fibrous threads inside lotus stalks on Myanmar's Inle Lake. A single scarf takes around 220,000 stems and two months of work. It was invented by a 19th-century weaver making robes for monks, and almost no one outside Myanmar has heard of it.

The fiber is naturally waterproof, feather-light, and smells faintly of the lake. Buddhist monks wore the first robes; wearing one now means carrying the rarest hand-loom tradition on earth against your skin.

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Lotus flower; not a photograph of the scarf or its producer.