Silk

The Chinese long held the monopoly on the secrets of silk production. Merchants carried the highly valued fabric West where it became a status symbol for the wealthy. The Chinese discovered very early how to domesticate the silkworm and mass produce the material. We came to Wenyi Lu, Xi'an's bustling fabric district, in hopes of finding wild silk. Wild silk, often called 'tussah,' is made from the cocoons of wild silkworms. Unlike domesticated silkworms which are fed only white mulberry leaves, wild silkworms eat a varied diet of oak and other leaves, making the material more resilient. Tussah silk is gathered after the moths have already hatched from the cocoons as opposed to domesticated silk techniques which boil the unhatched cocoons. Current styles favor domesticated silk/polyester blends so we had to do quite a bit of searching before we found any wild silk. Finally we came across a booth that sold wild silk crafted in Hangzhou. Wild silk is naturally brownish or yellow and difficult to dye so most tussah comes in earth tones. After a bit of 'jiang jia' (haggling) we bought some wild silk at 33RMB/yard (about 5$). Alice had one of the tailors outside the fabric bazaar make a silk quilt for Kalila.