MATERIAL MATTERS
This luxurious material has been revered for thousands of years and has a colourful history interwoven with legend and yarns…
Explore the intriguing history of silk
From the shimmer and elegant drape of a curtain to the subtle sheen of a lampshade, sumptuous silk always elevates the look and feel of a room with its super-so bres and lustrous beauty. This special material has extraordinary origins. Silk comes from the silkworm
(Bombyx mori), which feeds on mulberry leaves until it has increased in size 10,000 times and forms a cocoon of silk, before pupating. The threads are then dipped in hot water to loosen the laments and unwound. Each cocoon produces around 900 metres of a single strand – ve to eight strands are then spun together to form a single silk yarn, which can then be woven into fabric.
According to the Chinese philosopher Confucius, it was the Chinese princess Xi Ling Shi who rst discovered silk in 2640 BC, when she was si ing beneath a mulberry tree and a silkworm cocoon dropped into her cup of tea and began to unravel. Whether or not this is true, silk production certainly emerged in China around that time and, for 3,000 years, the Chinese kept ‘sericulture’ – silk production – methods a guarded secret.
By the third century BC, Chinese silks were beginning to nd their way
throughout the whole of Asia, by sea to Japan and, later, overland to Rome, along trading routes that we now refer to as the ‘Silk Road’. The Romans bought silk and admired it, but had no idea of its origins. Some assumed it was made from tree leaves. They didn’t discover its true origin until AD 552, when Emperor Justinian sent two monks on a mission to Asia and they returned to Byzantium with silkworm eggs hidden in their bamboo walking canes. Sericulture then spread throughout Greece and Asia Minor and further west over time. By the 10th century, Andalusia was
Europe’s main silk-producing centre. Italy started a silk industry in the 12th century. Later, France led the way. In the mid 1400s, Lyon became a leading marketplace for trading in imported foreign silks.
In 1685, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes meant that many French
Huguenots – some of whom were talented weavers – ed France to Germany, Italy and England, bringing with them their skills.
London and Lyon became the hubs for European silk. ‘The 18th century was a period in which the French and English silk industries experienced growth and renown for the quality of their plain and pa erned silks, which were sold both at home and abroad,’ says Professor Lesley Miller, Senior Curator of Textiles and Fashion before 1800, at the V&A, and author of Selling Silks:
A Merchant’s Sample Book. ‘Silk was mainly woven in small workshops, each housing maybe three to four looms. Silks with woven pa erns were the height of fashion, new designs being created each season. Plain silks were perhaps the mainstay of the trade, as they dated less readily.’
Lesley says that, throughout the century, French design was copied by the English. From the early 1740s to the early 1760s, England had its own very particular style: naturalistic oral pa erns on light-coloured silks in cream, white, light co ee and pale blue hues.
‘The designers we know by name today are those for whom archives survive, for example, James Leman and Anna Maria Garthwaite, whose designs are in the V&A, and Jean Revel and Philippe de Lasalle, whose work and portraits survive in the Musée des Tissus in Lyon,’ explains Lesley.
In 1804, French weaver and merchant Joseph Marie Jacquard invented the Jacquard machine
– a device ed to a power loom with perforated cards that meant producing silk brocade and damask was simpli ed.
The End of an Era
Increased mechanisation in the rst part of the 19th century boosted the productivity of the silk weaving industry. But sericulture in Europe began to decline, caused in part by diseases that a ected the silkworm, and competitively priced raw silk from Japan, which became easier to get hold of with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. In the Second World War, raw silk from Japan was cut o and new manmade bres began to be used instead of silk, even for parachutes and stockings.
Today, European sericulture has all but ended, but it’s still an important industry elsewhere. ‘There are millions of people worldwide who are directly dependent on sericulture. It provides
a bu er against poverty in rural communities,’ explains Hollie Moreland, Creative Director at David Hunt Lighting and The Light Shade Studio. ‘The main silk-producing countries are China and India, however it is also important in Brazil, Thailand and Vietnam amongst others.’
Silk antiques in good condition are always collectable and there’s a broad spectrum of silk nds available to suit every taste and budget, from vintage Japanese kimonos to elegant antique embroideries, but silk rugs command consistently high prices.
‘Antique silk rugs are always highly sought a er,’ says dealer Stephen Marsh of Farnham Antique Carpets. ‘The sheen of the silk and the luxurious texture underfoot makes these rugs stand out – plus, the workmanship is incredible. They took a long time to create.’
Sophisticated Styles
The nest silk rugs have plenty of knots per square inch. ‘Turkish silk Kumkapi rugs (mostly made between 1916 and 1938 in master weaver Zareh Penyamine’s workshop in Istanbul) are particularly stunning, with gold and silver threads, and can fetch between £20,000 and £100,000,’ reveals Stephen. At the more a ordable end of the spectrum, small silk rugs from Fereghan in Persia or Qum in Iran can cost in the region of £3,000-£5,000.
‘The many di erent faces of silk are endlessly intriguing,’ agrees Lesley. ‘I love the cra smanship in the historical examples, and the uidity and lustre of many of today’s silks – and, at the couture level of production, the extraordinary innovative approaches to design and embellishment. Now, it is also being championed as a sustainable bre.’
With cu ing-edge developments on the horizon (see page 74), perhaps silk’s story has only just begun. Turn the page for essential expert advice on collecting silk