Toy Len Goon hand-stitched this outfit from "mud silk" fabric, so-called because during the finishing process the brown dyed woven silk is spread on the ground and the top surface is coated with Guangdong’s iron-rich Pearl River mud. This creates a glossy black surface on the fabric face, leaving a brown color on the reverse.

Mud silk fabric is particular to the South China Guangdong region where Toy Len Goon lived. Mud silk is a practical work fabric; a step below elite silks, but more expensive than the ordinary indigo blue cotton peasants typically wore.

Once in Portland, Toy Len Goon put away her Chinese clothes and dressed like her Woodfords Corner neighbors in American-style cotton clothes she made with a sewing machine.