A silk worker boiling silkworm cocoons.

In Co Chat Village, located in Nam Dinh’s Nam Truc District, a family-run silk workshop with over a hundred years of history continues to preserve the traditional craft of silk-making through time-honored, manual techniques.

A silk worker drying silk threads.

Known as the “cradle of Nam Dinh silk,” Co Chat developed a mature local silk industry even during the French colonial era, despite social unrest. By the 1940s, village artisan Pham Ruan had won top honors at a traditional fair in Hanoi, marking the high quality of Co Chat’s silk. Today, elderly villagers still extract silk by hand, while the younger generation increasingly relies on modern equipment.

A 56-year-old silk worker reeling silk by hand.

A silk worker reeling silk from silkworm cocoons.

A silk worker reeling silk from silkworm cocoons.

Nowadays, hundreds of families in the village still earn a living from silk production. A single worker can process around 30 kilograms of cocoons a day, with the resulting silk threads sold by grade at around $35 to $40 per kilogram. These threads are bought by cooperatives, processed, and exported to countries such as Laos, Thailand, and China.

A silk worker separating silkworm cocoons.

In recent years, as urbanization accelerates, more young people have left to seek work elsewhere, making it increasingly difficult to pass down traditional craftsmanship. In Co Chat Village, most frontline silk artisans are now over sixty, while the younger generation tends to favor machinery for greater efficiency, posing a serious challenge to the survival of fully manual techniques.

A silk worker boiling silkworm cocoons.

To address this, the local government has partnered with the village silk cooperative to launch the “Co Chat Silk” collective trademark registration and promotion initiative. The goal is to increase the industry’s added value through branding and standardization, and to attract more young people to return and take part. The program covers not only packaging and marketing, but also production process standards, quality control systems, and intellectual property protection.

In Co Chat Village, turning a single silkworm cocoon into a fine thread takes nearly a month of meticulous work. From mulberry fields and silkworm houses to boiling vats and drying racks, this fully manual, end-to-end craftsmanship reflects the deep-rooted cultural and economic wisdom of Vietnam’s rural communities. By preserving the warmth of tradition while embracing the modern market, Co Chat continues to quietly write the next chapter in the century-long story of a silk-making village.