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The New Silk Road

Mention the word silk and all kinds of luxurious, nay even decadent, images  pop into one’s mind.
God knows why because silk production is a horribly barbaric process utterly devoid of Eastern promise.
Or at least it was until now!

At a pinch, people can recall that silk comes from worms and they feed on mulberry leaves – and that’s about it. Truth is, they’re not worms but caterpillars and the silk is a thread up to two kilometers long which the caterpillar spins and wraps around itself to form a cocoon when it begins to pupate. That little thread has woven more dreams than enough, has wound its way across continents and spun the fortunes of  entire nations.

The whole thing began nearly 5,000 years ago when a silk cocoon fell from a tree and plopped into the hot tea of 14-year-old Lady Hsi-Ling, wife of Chinese Emperor Huang Ti. As the thread began to unravel, the secrets of the silk moth were revealed and it led to a vast international trade and the development of the Silk Road, the longest trade route in history.

By the seventh century it had become a global highway, meandering its way from Eastern China, splitting into subsidiary routes, making its way through precipitous ravines, across arid deserts and via numerous oases before emerging at both the Caspian and Mediterranean seas. It took in such wonderfully evocative names as the Taklimakan desert (Land of Death), Samarkand and Tashkent.

Silk production sounds very ethnic, quaint and cottage industryish but mostly it’s done by big guys and some are very, very big. One Chinese manufacturer grows mulberry trees, hatches silk worms, makes and spins yarn and machines a million silk blouses every year for a UK chain store – all on one site.

It’s done by hatching Bombyx mori silk worms in a mechanically controlled environment. The female moth lays up to 400 eggs at a time in batches and her reward is to be centrifuged or split open so her interior can be checked for disease. Once they’ve mated, male moths may be placed in cold store for future use – a new meaning to chill out.

Eggs are kept in temperature controlled cabinets and hatch into caterpillars after about 10 days. And then they start eating chopped up mulberry leaves – and eating and eating. My little boys’ favourite video at the moment is  The Very Hungry Caterpillar but no matter how many apples, pears and peaches that little fella munches his way through, he can’t hold a candle to a silk worm. Each one will devour 50,000 times its original body weight in no more than six weeks.

This constant eating is followed by a week of frenetic activity – 300,000 figure-of-eight wiggles to enrobe itself in silken thread. And then absolute peace and tranquility as one of nature’s most extraordinary phenomenons takes place – the transformation of a caterpillar into the soupy stew that is a chrysalis which metamorphoses into a beautiful, winged moth 16 days later.

Or at least, that’s how it’s meant to be. In the silk industry, only the few moths retained for breeding ever emerge from their cocoons in this way. The billions which remain are immersed in boiling water, steamed, baked, roasted, electrocuted or microwaved to kill them before they hatch to prevent them from damaging the thread as they exit their silky home. The long silken filament – a product of modified salivary glands situated in the mouth – is then unwound and twisted together with other strands to produce a weavable thread.

Indian wild silks come from moths (tassar, muga and eri) which have outsmarted humans by refusing to be stall fed, choosing their own host such as oak trees and castor oil plants and, in the case of the tassar silkworm, emerging from their cocoons naturally with the onset of the monsoons. No amount of artificial climate control can fool them into making an earlier appearance.

These rebellious little creatures have given birth to an entirely new form of silk production called Ahimsa Peace Silk, so you can now silkily clad yourself in cruelty-free fabric based on the Hindu and Buddhist teaching of Ahimsa – treading lightly through life, doing as little damage as possible and causing no injury to any living creature. It uses silk thread from cocoons that have been vacated by the hatching moths. 

Although the filament is no longer continuous, its broken strands are spun together in much the same way as wool or cotton to make an endless, strong and weavable thread. It is the brainchild of the largest environmental and animal welfare organisation in India – People for Animals – whose chairperson is the tough and combative Mrs Maneka Gandhi, ex government minister, member by marriage of the Gandhi family and tireless champion of all creatures great and small.

The idea is clearly good for the moths but as so often happens when animals are treated with consideration, there are other advantages. Because trees are the tools of the silk trade, Ahimsa Silk is helping to restore oak tree cover in several denuded Indian states and is providing employment to large numbers of tribal weavers – vital in a country with high unemployment.

Well-known designers have provided professional input and the outcome has been a steadily growing range of lovely silk products such as stoles, shawls, scarves, ties, saris, furnishing fabrics, knitwear, dress materials and even rugs. And the concept is taking off, with a recent large order from India’s biggest retailer – Khadi and Village Industries Corporation.

It is claimed that Ahimsa Peace Silk betters traditional silk for strength, retains a deeper luster because of its avoidance of chemical processes and has a more uniform appearance. It also, of course, is helping a growing network of rearers, spinners, weavers, and artists, who are now earning their living from Ahimsa Silk. And of course, you can now have the luxury of pure, sensuous silk with a clear conscience.

www.ahimsapeacesilk.com

UK stockists of Ahimsa Peace Silk

Calico Projects Ltd, East Heath Oast,
Stream Lane, Hawkhurst, Kent TN 18 4 RD
Contact Nicky or Roy Freeman. Tel: 01580 752601

Flying Camels, 167 Lordship Lane,
London SE 228 HX
Contact Karen Orchard. Tel: 020 8299 2524

Siola, Market Square, Tremadog, Gwynedd
Contact Nia or Sioned Embrys. Tel: 07793 526433

Interested retailers or manufacturers should contact info@ahimsapeacesilk.com

 

© Tony Wardle