S o m e    l a n d m a r k s

In the 3rd. Century B.C., Chinese silk fabrics were beginning to find their way throughout the whole of Asia and were transported overland to the west and by sea to Japan in those long itineraries known as the silk roads. In 552 A.D. the Emperor Justinian sent two monks on a mission to Asia and they came back to Byzantium with silkworm eggs hidden inside their bamboo walking-sticks (the first example of industrial espionage?). From then on, sericulture spread throughout Asia Minor and Greece. In the 7th. Century, the Arabs conquered the Persians, capturing their magnificent silks in the process, and helped to spread sericulture and silk weaving as they swept victoriously through Africa, Sicily and Spain. In the 10th. Century, Andalusia was Europe’s main silkproducing centre. Then the Crusades, the formation of the Mongol Empire, Marco Polo’s journeys to China led to the development of commercial exchanges between East and West and to an ever-increasing use of silk. In this way, Italy started a silk industry as early as the 12th. Century. In the period 1450-1466, Lyon became a major warehouse for foreign, mainly Italian silks, but these imports caused a serious outflow of capital which led Louis XI in 1466 to declare his intention to ‘introduce the art and craft of making gold and silk fabrics in our city of Lyon’. Later, in 1536, François I gave Lyon the monopoly of silk imports and trade, thus effectively creating the Lyon silk industry. At the beginning, this budding indudstry was financed partly by Florentine bankers who settled on the banks of the Saône River. The next signifcant event in the development of the silk industry was the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The French Huguenots, once again subjected to religious persecution, fled the country in large numbers. Many Huguenots were expert throwsters and weavers and they made a major contribution to the development of the silk industry in Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Switzerland. Throughout the 18th. Century, silk continued to prosper in Europe, Japan and above all in China. European missionaries to China reported that ‘even the humblest soldiers are dressed in silk’.

In 1804, Jacquard in Lyon perfected the method of producing figured fabrics by using perforated cards. This was a revolution in weaving techniques and gave a tremendous impetus to the silk industry in Lyon and in other European cities. The 19th. Century is characterised by two contradictory trends : on the one hand increased mechanisation and improved productivity, on the other the beginning of the decline of European sericulture in the last quarter of the century. From 1872 and the opening of the Suez Canal, raw silk imported from Japan became more competitive, thanks also to Japan’s progress in reeling techniques. At the same time, the rapid industrialisation of European silk-producing countries led to a transfer of agricultural labour to the towns and cities. The first man-made fibres were beginning to make inroads into the markets traditionally reserved for silk. In the early part of the 20th. Century European sericulture continued its slow decline, but the silk-processing industry managed to survive through technical innovations and the development of blends of silk with other fibres. The next major turning-point was the Second World War. Raw-silk supplies from Japan were cut off and new synthetic fibres captured many of silk’s markets such as stockings and parachutes. After the war, Japan restored her silk production with vastly-improved reeling, inspection and classification of her raw silk. Japan was to remain the world’s major producer and practically sole supplier of raw silk until the late 1960s. Then China, thanks to a remarkable effort of planning and organisation gradually recaptured her historical position as the world’s biggest raw-silk producer and exporter. The other major producers of raw silk are India, Brazil, Uzbekistan and Thailand, but silk is produced in smaller quantities in a large number of countries which consume their own production.