Hmong girls primp beside a photographer's shack on Sunday in the Sapa market. Laurel Kendall / AMNH

Once a quiet French hill resort near the Chinese border, the town of Sapa now draws tourists from around the world. Visitors admire dramatic mountain scenery, trek to remote Hmong and Yao villages to see women create batik and embroidered goods and bargain for made-for-tourist handicrafts in a lively marketplace.

Sapa’s response to this international presence is still evolving. At first the Kinh shop-owners saw most of the profits, buying embroidered textiles from Hmong and Yao traders and re-cutting them into pillows, bags and vests for the tourist trade. More recently, Yao and Hmong women from villages near Sapa have begun to design tourist goods themselves, often using synthetic dyes to achieve bright but non-traditional colors. They sell these goods directly to tourists on the street, greeting them with cries of "Chapeau? Hat? Jacket? Pantalon joli, buy pretty trousers from me. Very cheap!"

Skirt. Hemp, cotton. Black Hmong people; Bo Nhang village, Son La Province; 1995. The batik pattern on this skirt depicts either rice grains or beans, streams and leaves. The flowers were cut from commercial cotton and stitched to the skirt fabric. Without a pleated skirt, a Hmong woman is improperly dressed to greet the ancestors in the next world. VME 95.5.3

Pleated Skirts of the Hmong People
Nearly every Hmong woman owns a pleated skirt, which she makes by hand. Personal taste and local tradition determine whether the seamstress chooses embroidery, appliqué or the batik dyeing process to decorate her creation, which may take more than a month to complete. Whatever method she selects, her designs always reflect the world around her. The finished skirt demonstrates a woman's character as well as her decorative skills.

Once upon a time, the earth was very large and the sun was very small. In order for the sun to shine on all of the earth, the planet had to shrivel up, producing mountains, hills and river valleys. The Hmong, who inhabit the steep, high mountains of northern Vietnam, believe their pleated skirts reflect this ridged landscape. –Hmong legend

Children's hats, like the one worn by this Hmong child, are proud markers of cultural identity. Claire Burkert

Hmong and Yao children's hats
Hat styles for youthful Hmong change as the children grow. Newborns wear plain caps, dyed indigo. At a three-month naming ceremony, an infant gets a more elaborate cap. The Hmong regard a child of that age as a fully opened flower, whose head can support weightier decorations.

Yao mothers create caps of differing styles for their sons and daughters (middle row). A girl's is embroidered, gathered at the top and tied with a string; a boy's cap is pieced together.

For both Yao and Hmong mothers, hats protect children from more than cold; hat ornaments serve as amulets to ward off evil spirits.

Women in the Marketplace
For Hmong women, Sapa is a swirl of intense economic and social exchanges. Turning some of their profits from the sale of handicrafts back into their businesses, the women buy clothing scraps for their next round of wares. Eager to improve their sales, they study design trends in the shops and take careful note of what tourists are buying. For Hmong girls, Sapa’s allure lies in the prospect of contact with an unfamiliar world. Before their marriageable teens, young women sometimes form close friendships with foreigners in the market.

"If lucky, I can earn over 100,000 dong [$7US] for a set of clothes, including investment and profit." –Mrs. Tan Ta May, Yao

Sapa Style
Merchants of the Kinh majority—and more recently, Yao and Hmong women themselves—transform second-hand costumes and textiles into bags and clothing in a distinctive "Sapa style" intended to appeal to tourists. Some goods are sold on the streets of Sapa, others in boutiques in Hanoi and still others in the Hanoi airport.

Once there was a skirt carefully made by a girl in Mu Cang Chai before the New Year festival (Tet). The girl wore the skirt in the fields for two years until it became soiled and worn. A Hmong woman trader bought it and took it by bus to Sapa. Cu Ti Pa took the skirt apart and dyed the cloth bright blue. Following a design she had seen in a Kinh handicraft shop, she cut the cloth and hand-sewed it into a handbag, adding part of a Yao sleeve. Finally, the bag was sold to a tourist in the market. She took it home to San Bernardino, believing her bag to be a fine example of a traditional accessory from Northern Vietnam. –Claire Burkert (2003)