མེན (Men)
Men (མེན) is Bhutan's national cotton textile — a warp-faced striped cloth produced on the back-strap loom throughout western and central Bhutan, worn as the kira (women's dress) for everyday formal occasions and as the gho lining for men. The warp-faced structure — where the warp threads entirely cover the weft — means the pattern is entirely determined by the warp stripe arrangement. The critical technical knowledge is the warp stripe calculation: a full kira requires a warp of 500–800 threads arranged in a specific stripe sequence that must be planned in full before any thread is wound, because the stripe pattern is only visible once the warp is complete. Experienced men weavers carry the stripe sequence as a complete mental image — color, width, and sequence — before a single thread is wound.
Risk level: Endangered · Bhutan national ICH list; Zorig Chusum state designation
Yathra (ཡར་ཐྲ) is Bumthang District's defining textile tradition — a weft-faced weave producing bold multicolor geometric patterns in hand-spun and hand-dyed wool.
Kishuthara (ཀི་ཤུ་ཐར་ར) is Bhutan's most prestigious silk weaving tradition — produced almost exclusively in Khoma village, Lhuentse District, eastern Bhutan, and constituting one of the finest supplementary weft silk textiles in Asia.
The making of the traditional bamboo bow (zhu) and arrow (da) used to play archery, Bhutan's national sport since 1971.
Lhazo (ལྷ་བཟོ — 'deity craft') is the Bhutanese tradition of Buddhist thangka scroll painting — closely related to Tibetan thangka but with a distinct Bhutanese iconographic style: the Karma Gadri tradition.
The carving of Buddhist scripture, prayer-flag designs, and mandala images in mirror-reversed relief onto wooden printing blocks, for mass xylographic printing and publication of sacred texts.
Serzo (གསེར་བཟོ — 'gold craft') encompasses Bhutanese gold and silver smithing — producing ritual Buddhist vessels (offering bowls, butter lamp stands, water offering bowls), personal ornaments (rings, earrings, amulet boxes), and royal…
The repair of holes, tears and worn areas in fine cloth so that the damage disappears: the darner matches the weave, rebuilds the warp with a needle and then weaves the weft back in, so the mend reads as plain cloth.
Haebaru hanaori (南風原花織) is the figured weaving of Haebaru Town, Okinawa's largest weaving center, woven there since the Meiji era alongside the town's Ryukyu kasuri.
Yomitanzan minsā (読谷山ミンサー) is Yomitan's narrow cotton sash, about 10 cm wide.
Kapa is the traditional Native Hawaiian barkcloth, made almost entirely from the inner bark of the wauke (paper mulberry) tree through a labor-intensive process of stripping, soaking, fermenting, and repeated beating that transforms bast…
The Pha Sin is the traditional wrapped tube skirt worn by Thai women for formal and ceremonial occasions — and its weaving tradition in the Central region is distinct from both the Isan silk traditions and the northern Lanna traditions.
The Bosnian ćilim weaving tradition — the production of the distinctive Bosnian flat-woven carpet whose geometric vocabulary blends Ottoman and Slavic folk elements in a tradition maintained primarily by Bosnian women in the rural…