However, after World War II, an American oss officer called Jim Thompson decided that silk would be popular back at home in America and through his connections in New York began marketing the product as a traditional Siamese material. fact, the material he created had little relationship to what had previously been produced in the country. But through clever branding and by developing a range of Thai patterns, he managed to establish Thai Silk as recognizable brand. writing in the Bangkok Post in 1949, Alexander MacDonald described that "out of a number of scattered remains of history, from cultures borrowed from neighbours, and from colonies of fat and lazy Siamese silk worms, Jim Thompson is trying to build a modest Throughout the 1950s Thais remained little interested in Thai Silk, considering it generally only for fancy Rather, it was American tourists that sustained the local development of a silk industry in Thailand. In 1951. the King broadway, featuring a depiction of the Thai court in the mid-19th century in which the costumes were all made using Thai silk. Created by Irene Sharaff, the production served to mote the material to the American audience, and fuelled interest in the country.