The Princess and the Worm

I would like to take a moment to honor the lowly silkworm who toils endlessly throughout its short life to produce the beautiful silk fabrics we love to drape around ourselves… and our homes.

According to an ancient Chinese legend, around 2640 B.C. a princess named Xi Ling Shi was sitting under a mulberry tree when a cocoon of silk dropped into her cup of tea. Fascinated, she watched as the cocoon unraveled into one shiny long thin strand. She then pulled the strands from several cocoons through her ring to form a thicker thread. If that wasn’t enough, Princess Xi Ling Shi is also credited with inventing the silk loom and introducing silkworm rearing to the Chinese aristocracy. Although my brother, Harold, accuses me of being a princess, I have yet to invent anything really cool - like silk production or the silk loom.

For over 2000 years, the Chinese authorities were able to keep silk production a secret by imposing the death penalty for revealing the techniques surrounding silk production, or smuggling silkworm eggs or cocoons out of China. Eventually silk worms and their only food source, mulberry leaves, were smuggled out of China and silk production was introduced to the rest of the world.

Other fabrics are nice, but nothing beats the look, feel, texture, and luminosity of a beautiful silk dupioni or silk taffeta. Whether used in draperies, bed fashions, or upholstery, silk has a timeless appeal that

never goes out of style.