the Wedding Dress Capital of the World

[Randy W]

from the Smithsonianmag

 

This Is the Wedding Dress Capital of the World

 

In Suzhou, China, step inside one of the world’s largest silk factories and see where wedding dresses come from

 

 

 

The idea of making silk stems from Chinese ingenuity, though the exact history of the practice is the stuff of legend. It’s said that about 6,000 years ago, Lady Hsi-Lin-Shih—the wife of Yellow Emperor Huangdi—was sitting under a mulberry tree in her garden drinking tea. A cocoon fell from the tree into her cup, and she was able to unravel the wet pod into a single strong thread. She went on to invent the loom and taught the locals how to raise silkworms for silk production. Archaeological sites along the Yangzi River have revealed ancient spinning tools and silk thread and fabric dating back to 7,000 BC.

For nearly 3,000 years, the Chinese kept silk-making processes a closely guarded secret, with leaks to the outside world punishable by death. Silk was obtained in other countries by way of the Silk Road, which began in eastern China and reached the Mediterranean Sea. Eventually, a group of Chinese immigrants settled in Korea and brought with them silk-making knowledge, and the practice began to emerge outside its country of origin. Suzhou, though, remained an epicenter of silk production, producing high quality silk in staggering amounts—and that continues to this day.

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Visitors to the Suzhou No. 1 Silk Factory will tour the facility from mulberry plantation to finished silk product, exploring and observing each step in the process. There’s a display of working 100-year-old automated looms behind glass, all of which are making elaborate silk fabric in the old style. And near the end of the tour, just before the extensive gift shop replicating an ancient silk market, guests can try their hands at making a quilt themselves. With the help of workers or other guests, everyone grabs a bundle of silk from one corner and stretches it as far as possible without breaking it, setting it down atop hundreds of other layers of the same stretched silk. This pile will eventually be sewn into a silk quilt. You won’t be able to buy it that day, but you can officially say that somewhere in the world, someone owns a quilt you helped make by hand.