Hoe moerbeizijde wordt gemaakt, van blad tot geweven rol

Silk is the only textile fibre that arrives as a single continuous filament rather than as short staple that has to be spun. That one fact shapes every step of how it is made, and explains why the process is still slow. Here is the route from mulberry leaf to woven bolt.

1. The mulberry leaf

Everything starts with the tree. Bombyx mori, the domesticated silkworm, eats mulberry leaf and nothing else, so silk quality begins as an agricultural question: leaf quality, harvest timing, how fresh the leaf is when it reaches the worm. This is also where the name comes from — mulberry silk means silk from mulberry-fed Bombyx mori, as distinct from wild or tussah silk, whose worms eat oak and other leaves and produce a coarser, darker filament.

2. Rearing

The worms feed for roughly a month, moulting several times and growing enormously in that period. Temperature, humidity and cleanliness all matter, because a disturbed or diseased batch produces cocoons that reel badly. This stage is labour-heavy and cannot be rushed.

3. The cocoon

When it is ready, the worm spins a cocoon from two filaments of fibroin bound together with sericin, a natural gum. A single cocoon yields something on the order of a kilometre of usable filament, depending on the batch. The cocoons are then dried so they can be stored and graded before reeling.

4. Reeling

Reeling is where raw silk is actually made. Cocoons are softened in hot water to loosen the sericin, the filament ends are found, and several filaments are drawn together and wound onto a reel as one strand — a single filament is too fine to use alone. How cleanly a batch reels is most of what determines its grade: long unbroken filament, even thickness and few defects are exactly what the grading standard measures. We cover that in what 6A grade silk means.

5. Throwing and degumming

Reeled raw silk is then twisted — thrown — into yarn suited to its end use, with more twist for a crisp handle and less for a fluid one. Degumming removes the remaining sericin, and this is the point at which silk starts to look like silk: the gum is dull, and taking it off reveals the lustre underneath. Silk loses a meaningful share of its weight at this stage, which is one reason finished silk costs what it does.

6. Weaving

How the yarn is interlaced decides the character of the cloth more than the fibre does. A satin weave floats warp threads over several wefts, which is what produces the smooth, light-catching face most people picture when they think of silk. A jacquard loom instead controls warp threads individually, so the pattern is built into the structure rather than printed onto it — that is why our jacquard scarves show their design as a change in sheen rather than in colour.

Weave and weight are separate variables. The same satin weave can be woven light or heavy, which is what momme measures — see the silk momme guide for how 16, 19, 22 and 30 momme differ in practice.

7. Dyeing and printing

Silk takes dye readily, which is a mixed blessing: it means deep, clean colour is achievable, and it also means poorly fixed dye will transfer. Printed designs are applied after weaving, either to one face or, for double-sided pieces, carried through so the pattern reads on both sides. Where the motif comes from is its own subject — see Chinese silk motifs and what they mean.

8. Finishing and making up

Finally the cloth is cut and made up, and the edges decide how the piece ages. On scarves, a hand-rolled hem keeps the edge soft and lets it fall; on sleepwear, the seams and piping carry the wear. This is the stage where construction, not fibre, determines service life — a 30 momme garment with weak seams will fail before a 19 momme one that is well made.

Why the process is the price

Nothing in the chain above scales the way a synthetic does. The worm eats for a month; the filament is reeled at a speed set by the cocoon, not by a machine; weight is lost at degumming. What you are paying for is mostly time and yield, and that is also why momme and grade are worth understanding before you compare two listings on price alone.

For the city where this has been done longest, read the Suzhou story.