Our story
From Our Village
to Your Home
Every Ingfah piece begins in Ubon Ratchathani, in the north-east of Thailand, in the hands of people we know by name. We do not run a factory. We work with weavers, a leather atelier, a silk printer and a metalsmith, and we put their names on what they make.
Ingfah
- Houses of craft
- 6
- Pieces in the catalogue
- 29
- Makers credited by name
- 4
- Of net profits to the Legacy Fund
- 10%
Ubon Ratchathani
Where the work is still done slowly
Isaan has woven silk and plaited river grasses for longer than anyone has kept count. The skill passes down a household, not a curriculum — a grandmother, a mother, a daughter at the same low wooden frame.
That knowledge is easy to lose. Young people leave for Bangkok; the looms go quiet. Ingfah exists so that the work pays properly where it is made, and so the next apprentice has a reason to stay.
It means our pieces arrive in small numbers and take the time they take. We think you can feel the difference in the hand of a woven panel, and in a silk lining nobody but you will see.
The Hands Behind It
Ubon RatchathaniEach piece in the catalogue carries the name of the person who made it. These are the makers behind the collections you can buy today.
The making
How a piece
comes together
Four stages, four sets of hands, and no step that a machine could do faster without taking something out of it.
- 01The harvestWater hyacinth is cut from the waterways around Ubon, sun-dried for a fortnight, then sorted strand by strand.
- 02The weaveMalee and her weavers plait each panel by hand on a wooden form. A single bag takes days, never minutes.
- 03The leather & silkOur atelier cuts full-grain leather for handles and edges; Isaan silk is printed with lotus drawn in our own studio.
- 04The finishBrass connectors are turned and plated, edges are burnished, and every piece is checked by the person who made it.
What We Work With
Water hyacinth
Harvested, dried and plaited by hand
Isaan silk
Handwoven in north-eastern Thailand
Full-grain leather
Cut and burnished in our atelier
Plated brass
Turned by a metalsmith, not a machine
Mongolian cashmere
Two-ply, fringed by hand
In her words
“We do not simply create handmade products. We help ensure that the hands which create them will continue for generations to come.”
Malee
Master Weaver
10%
The Ingfah Artisan Legacy Fund
A tenth of our net profits funds apprenticeships with master weavers in rural Thailand — a wage while they learn, and a loom of their own at the end of it. Buying a piece keeps a craft employed.
Stay close to the workshop
New collections, new makers and the occasional note from the village. No more than once a month.
From Our Village to Your Home.