Tradition

Chorabap

សារបាប់

Chorabap (សារបាប់, also ចរបាប់), or sarabap, is a heavy Khmer silk woven with gold- or silver-colored thread and worn as a sampot (សំពត់) at weddings.[1][2] With hol (ហូល) and phamuong (ផាមួង), it is one of the silks that Khmer people of every rank, from villagers to officials and the king, have long worn.[1]

Name

Sarabap (សារបាប់) is the form in the 1967 dictionary of Samdech Chuon Nath, which defines it as a heavy, costly silk woven with gold or silver thread.[3] The cloth is also called chorabap (ចរបាប់) or charabap (ចារបាប់).[2][1]

The cloth

Chorabap is woven from silk, with an extra weft of gold- or silver-colored metallic thread that raises the pattern on the surface. The metallic thread runs densely or sparsely depending on the design.[2][1] Its ground is woven the same way as hol and phamuong.[1] A similar cloth, lboek (ល្បើក), raises its pattern in silk thread instead of metallic thread.[1]

The pattern is set up on the loom before weaving starts, with many sets of pattern heddles (thkor); some weavers use as many as 60.[1] Popular patterns include the kantuot (កន្ទួត) flower, the chan (ច័ន្ទ) flower and the diamond.[1]

Wearing

Chorabap is worn as a sampot, either drawn between the legs as chang kben or hanging as a skirt.[4] It is worn at formal court events and weddings, and by the nobility and the dancers of the Royal Ballet.[5][4] The 1997 Cambodian-English dictionary describes sampot sarabap as the skirt of the Royal Ballet and of newlyweds.[6] In the Royal Ballet of Cambodia, the female costume pairs a chorabap sampot, woven with two contrasting silk threads and a gold or silver metallic thread, with the sbai (ស្បៃ).[7] A bride may wear chorabap with an embroidered sbai.[8]

History

At Angkor, cloth showed rank. The Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, who lived there in 1296 and 1297, wrote that only the ruler could wear cloth with dense patterns, and that the most valued cloth came from the "western seas". In the palace, gold brocades given by foreign merchants covered the table.[9] On Angkorian reliefs, deities, apsaras and royal women wear richly patterned skirt cloths.[10]

A ceremonial skirt cloth of the mid to late nineteenth century in the Art Gallery of New South Wales has a silk ground with green warp and red weft. Its pattern, after the brocades of India, is woven in a yellow silk extra weft in place of gold-wrapped thread.[11]

Under the Khmer Rouge, from 1975 to 1979, colorful dress was forbidden. When the National Museum of Cambodia reopened in 1979, it had lost three quarters of its silk textiles and costumes, among them sampot chorebap.[12]

Weavers

A wooden floor loom under a raised house, with long pale pink warp threads stretched out.
A silk loom near Kampong Cham. Photo: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0

In 2007, chorabap was woven only in Khsach Kandal district of Kandal province, in Prek Luong commune.[1] In December 2024, Cambodia's Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Embassy of India agreed on a project to train about 100 women of Khsach Kandal in flower-pattern silk weaving.[13]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Buddhist Institute, Technique of natural dyeing and traditional pattern of silk production in Cambodia (December 2007)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Yosothor, Chea Sophary, សំពត់សូត្រ (Silk sampot), Khmer Renaissance 18 (December 2023)
  3. ↑ SEAlang Library, Khmer dictionaries: សារបាប់ (Headley 1997, Chuon Nath 1967)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Art Gallery of New South Wales, Skirt cloth (sampot chawng kbun), circa 1900 (undated)
  5. ↑ Magali An Berthon, 100 fashion and textile terms in Khmer, English, and French (2025)
  6. ↑ SEAlang Library, Khmer dictionaries: សំពត់ (Headley 1977 and 1997, Chuon Nath 1967)
  7. ↑ Sounds of Angkor, Patrick Kersalé, Le Ballet royal du Cambodge au XXIe siècle (in French, April 29, 2021)
  8. ↑ Khmernote, ក្រសួងវប្បធម៌ អំពាវនាវដល់អ្នកច្នៃម៉ូតសម្លៀកបំពាក់ (Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts appeal to clothing designers) (February 26, 2026)
  9. ↑ Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, Paul Pelliot, Mémoires sur les coutumes du Cambodge (in French, 1902)
  10. ↑ Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Gillian Green, Indic impetus? Innovations in textile usage in Angkorian period Cambodia (2000)
  11. ↑ Art Gallery of New South Wales, Skirt cloth (sampot rbauk), mid to late 19th century (undated)
  12. ↑ Archaeological Textiles Review, Magali An Berthon, TEX-KR project: from textile remains to lost practices (2022)
  13. ↑ The Better Cambodia, Reviving heritage, empowering women: Cambodia and India partner for silk weaving initiative (December 9, 2024)
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This page was last edited on 8 October 2026, at 13:21.