The post below (from yesterday) contains images of “modern women” in Burma in the 1960s. They are wearing synthetic-fiber clothes made by the Toyo Rayon Company.
Well close to 30 years before the wonders of synthetic fibers were promoted in Burma, the Siamese discovered the joys of Tobralco.
I haven’t been able to find much information on Tobralco. I understand that it was a trademark for a type of textile produced by the Tootal Broadhurst Lee Company Ltd. in Manchestor, England. This company sought to produce textiles which would not wrinkle. While I would think that this would require using something synthetic, the materials which the Tootal Broadhurst Lee Company produced appear to have been largely made of cotton or silk.
So while the material might have been different from what the Toyo Rayon Company produced, these images are similar in the way in which they promote a “modern” sensibility. In comparing these pictures from the 1930s in Siam with those from the 1960s in Burma below, it becomes clear how different the paths to modernity that the Siamese and Burmese followed were.
