Tradational crafts of Japan: silk - The aristocratic fibres
Friday, February 8, 2008 | | |Silk has always been and will almost certainly continue to be the aristocrat of textiles. For centuries, it was the pillar of Japanese export trade, even when the shogunate isolated the country of all foreigners, but less contact, and continued to be until the radical economic changes between the two wars this century.
Silk has been practiced everywhere throughout the country; farms with more than one story used the top story of the cultivation of silkworms. In peace and prosperity of the Edo period (1600-1868), fine silk were in great demand by the samurai class and rich merchants, which surpassed the samurai in economic power. Sumptuary laws did little to stiffle the port of fine silk clothes often money was spent on underwear rather than immediately visible outside kimono.
Commoners were forbidden to wear silk fabrics fine. The only silk they were allowed to wear cloth was made by spinning silk floss in the same manner as cotton or wool. (Son of fine silk yarn are not, but are pulled and reeled from a cocoon of silk.) Fabrics woven with the son of a silk yarn and SLUB superficially resembles cotton brought by the owners. This fabric is known as tsumugi (pongee in Engish). In an ironic reversal, tsumugi is today among the most sought treasure and silk fabrics.
Silk has been practiced everywhere throughout the country; farms with more than one story used the top story of the cultivation of silkworms. In peace and prosperity of the Edo period (1600-1868), fine silk were in great demand by the samurai class and rich merchants, which surpassed the samurai in economic power. Sumptuary laws did little to stiffle the port of fine silk clothes often money was spent on underwear rather than immediately visible outside kimono.
Commoners were forbidden to wear silk fabrics fine. The only silk they were allowed to wear cloth was made by spinning silk floss in the same manner as cotton or wool. (Son of fine silk yarn are not, but are pulled and reeled from a cocoon of silk.) Fabrics woven with the son of a silk yarn and SLUB superficially resembles cotton brought by the owners. This fabric is known as tsumugi (pongee in Engish). In an ironic reversal, tsumugi is today among the most sought treasure and silk fabrics.
