BOYY kicks off its BOYYISH Roti Saimai collection just in time for the Songkran holiday with a daring proposition: a do-it-yourself cotton candy burrito kit released directly into the splash zone.
Celebrated as Thailand’s New Year, Songkran is marked by temple visits, family reunions, auspicious sweets — and the world’s largest water fight. It is a festival defined by joyful impermanence where streets dissolve into laughter, chalk blessings blur, and carefully styled hair meets its humid fate. Into this ritual of soaking renewal enters spun sugar — structurally optimistic, spiritually aligned, and physically… vulnerable.
Named after the beloved Thai dessert, the collection translates the delicacy’s soft whimsy into three pastel tanks and a headband that echo the roti sai mai’s airy sweetness with a distinctly Boyyish twist. The playful result is fashion pieces that reference confection and confection that references ephemerality. By merging a traditional street snack with avant-garde streetwear, the collection serves as a vibrant dispatch from the intersection of heritage and modern irony.
Boyyish set featuring their Roti Saimai Collection with matching Italo-Thai dessert muse. (Source: BOYY)
What is Roti Sai Mai (โรตีสายไหม)
Roti sai mai — literally “silk thread roti” (sai = thread, mai = silk) — is one of Thailand’s most recognizable sweets. Fine strands of hand-stretched palm sugar are wrapped inside a whisper-thin roti pancake, forming something often affectionately described as a cotton candy burrito, cotton candy crêpe, or silk-thread spring roll.
The roti wrapper, made from flour, water, and salt, is sometimes infused with pandan for its grassy vanilla aroma and pale jade hue. The floss itself is hand-pulled from a large clump of molten palm sugar, giving the dessert caramel notes that distinguish it from Western carnival cotton candy. Though simple, the treat itself embodies Thailand’s craftsmanship.
Roti sai mai’s texture is paradoxically airy and chewy, delicate yet tactile. Upon first bite, the silky sugar strands collapse instantly on the tongue, dissolving into caramel with a faint nutty depth from its palm origins. While traditionally pale gold or pandan green, modern variations of the treat appear in pastel hues with flavors ranging from strawberry and taro to chocolate and banana — edible confetti suited for a celebratory season. These vibrant variations turn the simple street snack into a celebratory accessory, perfectly suited for the kaleidoscopic energy of the Songkran season.
Vibrant hand-pulled sai mai caramel threads served at Thai food stalls are often stored in inflated bags to maintain their fragile, airy texture and protect against water fight shenanigans.
(Source: Tourism Authority of Thailand)
Symbolic Sweetness and Renewal
While enjoyed year-round, roti sai mai often appears during Songkran, when symbolic sweetness sets the tone for the year ahead. In Thai tradition, consuming auspicious desserts during the New Year is believed to cultivate a sweet life, attracting fortune and softening any hardships of the coming months.
The dessert’s physical fragility mirrors the holiday’s central philosophy of renewal through release. Just as Songkran’s ritualistic water is used to wash away the energetic residue of the past year, the sai mai sugar dissolves with equal ease. It serves as a fleeting, hand-spun narrative of Thai heritage and a reminder that the most beautiful traditions are often the ones that disappear the fastest.
Panda roti sai mai by Lamunn.
The BOYYISH Take
To accompany their new Roti Saimai Collection, luxury house BOYY has partnered with artisanal dessert atelier Lamunn to create a suite of custom-flavored roti sai mai, designed to act as a fleeting, edible extension of the clothes themselves.
With roots in both Milan and Bangkok, the leather goods powerhouse bridges these two culinary capitals through a shared devotion to craftsmanship. Here, the soul of legacy Italian desserts is translated into spun sugar — a sensory pairing that ensures the BOYYISH spirit is both seen and tasted.
The collaboration introduces three distinctive variations that pay homage to the brand’s dual heritage, infusing the traditional Thai treat with a European flavor profile:
Crème Caramel
A smooth, velvety caramel sweetness paired with original white cotton candy, finished with crushed vanilla-infused crackers.Tiramisù
Bold coffee with the creamy sweetness roti, paired with cocoa cotton candy and topped with crushed chocolate cookies.Cannoli Pistachio
Nutty pistachio richness topped with crushed pistachios and paired with pandan cotton candy for a fragrant, balanced sweetness.
The Beauty of the Inconvenient
There is a playful irony in distributing fragile soluble sugar threads at a festival defined by high-pressure water cannons. Yet, for the Thai New Year, this tension is precisely the point.
Songkran demands a total surrender to joy, community, and the cleansing unpredictability of a fresh lunar cycle. Through this lens, the Roti sai mai becomes a metaphor made edible and a tactile reminder that the most profound pleasures are often designed to be fleeting, beautifully inconvenient, and fully savored before they inevitably melt into the humid air.
