The story of the lost ancient fabric
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- čas přidán 29. 03. 2024
- The story of the lost ancient fabric
2 centuries ago this ancient fabric was 26x more expensive than silk. It was worn by the Mughal Emperors, the Romans, Marie Antoinette and even Jane Austen wrote about it.
For the last 200 years, no one has been able to make this fabric. - Zábava
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I'm from Dhaka and have been fascinated with Muslin all my life. The sad thing is there are ancient fabrics disappearing every day. Rajshahi silk is gone, as is real Tussore and even proper khadi.
One thing you perhaps skipped either for the sake of time or to avoid sensation is that in line with the Calico Acts the production of fabric was outlawed in India. Raw cotton was grown, harvested and shipped to Manchester where it was spun into very crude industrial cloth and shipped back to be sold to natives who initially had no interest in buying it. The solution was to ban spinning and weaving, a ban enforced by removing the thumbs of anyone caught with a wheel or a loom in their posession. You may recall that one of Mahatma Gandhi's first acts of rebellion was to spin cloth at a wheel. This was an urbane chap, a trained lawyer who wore suits but when he became a freedom activist he learned first to spin and weave his own cloth and for the rest of his life that was all he would ever wear. Today the spinning wheel is at the centre of India's flag. All because the Calico Acts were so emblematic of (greater) India's subjugation.
Secondly cultivation of carpas was replaced by the British with jute and in some places indigo. They had no use for carpas cotton because their mills couldn't use it and its continued cultivation posed a threat to their monopoly. These two reasons, banning the local manufacture of cloth and destroying the plant are the main reasons why Muslin disappeared and as for the 16 steps, Saiful Islam's team eventually concluded that there was something missing. Perhaps as some small act of resistance, the workers had not revealed all of their secrets to their overlords.
Want to know what I consider poetic justice? Bangladesh has come back today as the world's largest manufacturer of clothing (bar China of course, the anomalous outlier in every industry).
Yes I had all of this in the original video, but it got too long and had to simplify it. You’re right though !
Yes everything you said is true although wheel in indias flag Ashokas dhamma chakra (wheel of righteousness/moral) on his rock edict. It symbolizes eternal nature of bharat as civilization.
Thank you . Historical facts are very important
Only one source so far has brought it to my attention that, at the first presidential inauguration of George Washington, he meaningfully selected a simple brown tailcoat of American make as his attire. Maybe it's not usually seen as an interesting detail against the exciting bits like crossing a river in the dark in December, but it caught my attention when it was explained that among the other, more famously enumerated oppressions by the British against their own people in the colonies was the outlawing of producing their own fabrics. Sound like they knew what that whole industry was worth to any given community, and that's why apparently nobody was allowed to have it. 🤔
I've been blessed to actually make some cool friends in rural New York, despite me being from over 2,000 miles away born in Arizona, who have been showing me around the northeast, and the old footprint of the megalithic industrial scene that USED to be there until the 1970s (when Democrat mayors decided to renovate their communities, tore down everything from the 1800s, and stopped halfway except for installing some crummy Modern Art sculptures 🙄); haven't been there yet, but I'm told there are still a few old textile milles to see, and I can't wait! 🤩 Supposedly that's what Tarry Town USED to be named for-its tarry cloth-although I guess it's been changed, probably at the same time as those "urban renewal" history-bleaching demolition projects. Damn commies... 😝
My source for the tailcoat story was "George Washington: Dealmaker and Chief", although I do expect to find more as I continue my self-education, particularly seeking out "primary" documents.
I've always known that Americans still refer to our money as "bucks" because back in colonial days trade in deer hides with the native tribes was so extensive that leather was actually used as a cash currency before our revolution. I never actually appreciated the immense significance of this detail until I found a tutorial about how to make moccasins hosted on the CZcams channel of the Cherokee nation; their own expert historian generally explains the scope of the leather trade with colonists and other Europeans. According to him, the native hunters themselves almost drove deer to extinction in the North American East. (The species has long recovered, though, to greater numbers than it's ever been-presumably because few modern Americans still eat deer as a primary food source.)
I never actually put these two data points together before, but it makes absolutely sense to me now that if the British outlawed fabrics manufacture in the colonies, but just wanted the colonies to grow raw materials for foreign manufacture and to be sold back to the colonists in a completed state, that OF COURSE the colonists just started dealing more in leather goods with the freer locals much more. Oops! 😄
@@eutytoalbaAs an aside, Tarrytown was named after either the Dutch word for wheat or one of the early settlers, John Tarry. It’s not certain which one for sure. Many parts of lower NY/Hudson valley were Dutch settlements. 😊
You don't mention that many of the Indian artisans were actually put out of work by cutting off their fingers in order for the English manufacturing to get ahead. It was a horrible, cruel time.
Nope the british cutting the fingers of indian artisans is a myth that has been debunked by historians multiple times 🤦🤡
He doesn't mention it bc he knows that's indian fake knews which have been refutted by historians. No historical evidence the english chopped fingers of indian manufacturers and it would make no sense bc the east india company was in competition with the enlglish textile manufacturers
Oh my God, now why doesn't that surprise me😢😢
😮 My God, I've never heard of this??? They were actually crippled and mutilated???
So evil! I didn't know this😭
I'll sum up: the British took over production (despite not having the know-how) and chopped off the hands of or killed the craftspeople who were making it in India, thus removing all knowledge of how to produce such fine linens.
that is quite evil
It was cotton, not linen.
Total BS
Its not BS but simply something that has been sterilised and attenuated in the west (especially the colonising nations). The atrocities committed by the British and other European colonisers on Asia, Africa and Native Americans are truly horrible. People living in the UK mightn’t remember or even ever have been truly exposed to it, but trust me people here, living in the very areas which have been “colonised,” remember fully and truly the extent of injustices conducted against their grandparents and great grandparents.
@@BoggWeasel Says who? There are written edicts of the East India Company which declares that any weaver weaving fine muslin will have their thumbs chopped off. Some weavers did have their thumbs chopped off to show that the Brits were serious about the threat.
A few months back, Indian women took out a parade in London, showcasing most of India's traditional handloom woven sarees. Why do you think they did that? 😁
😊A good quality chemise could reportedly be drawn through a wedding ring. That is incredibly fine fabric.
The exact same thing is said about warm shawls from Orenburg 😄 why do people all over the world evaluate the quality of clothing items with the help of rings? 😂
It is sad only about Orenburg shawls !!! People sometimes hear things and don’t know the origin and it’s not the quality,but how delicate the shawls 🤦🏻♂️ chemise is definitely a myth ! Although the chemises was made from linen ,but not that delicate ! It is a protective garment ,it has to be sturdy , doable and washable .no way such a delicate fabric can stand it 🤷🏻♂️
I spent two months in Orenburg in the late nineties, and a lady visited my host family with a shawl she was making to sell. I've thought nothing of it since till reading your comment.
Large wool shawl through the wedding ring.
@@jant4741 only skillfully knitted shawls from special goat wool can do the trick. They are almost like lace, very airy.
Fun fact from a Bangladeshi, cotton clothes were so oppressive to British wool that the East India Company resorted to destroying looms & cutting of the thumbs of the weavers which were used to operate the looms.
Nope the british cutting the thumbs of weavers and destroying looms is a myth that has been denunked by historians many times
Fun fact: british destroying looms and cutting of the tumbs of the weavers in india is hindu propaganda refuted by academics, never ocurred
@@ArmancioW yup William Bolts was a hindu propagandist in 18th century.
@@ArmancioW Fun fact: Many "credible" historians are running a PR campaign for the Empire, last thing they have to hold on to for national pride I guess.
😮😮😮
Dhaka Muslin is making its comeback here in Bangladesh and hopefully soon around the world.
It’s not just the fashion industry that is obsessed with cost cutting. Greed and stupidity abound across all industries. Boeing springs to mind.
Greed and stupidity are everywhere, one engenders the other and they are expressions of human nature at its worst. Shining a light on it, like in this video, is the best antidote.
As in boing boing springs?
It's not "human" nature to be greedy - it is the hybrid swine that reveal their ancestral bloodline.
True enough, but the fashion
industry is obsessive about
fast fashion and profits.
Have you seen the videos
about the mountains of
donated used clothing that
was dumped on Africa.
Capitalism comes to mind.
It's not true that longer fibers were more appropriate for industrially produced fabric, across the board. Flax plants were actually bred to have shorter fibers, because the fine, long, thin fibers would break in the machines, so that the linen we have today is coarser than linen that was available pre-industrialization. (Kristine Vike has a good video on that.) Good video, though!
There is distinct difference between linen o flax fibers and cotton fibers.linen and flax fibers are stiffer and more brittle,cotton is much more flexible,so yes you are right about linen,but it’s only for linen in general the mass production do prefer the longer fibers !
Very good video! I thoroughly enjoyed it. I weave, knit, crochet, sew, spin, die yarn and do embroidery. So I have great interest in this. I hope you do more videos on this subject. But, unfortunately, you are right, I never get paid what my work is really worth. My family even takes it for granted.
Ancient Egyptian linen was also this sheer.
@crystalperry6370 - not everyone is knit/sew/spin worthy! Most people have very little clue how many hours to take to create something by hand.
but those are totall different fiber lengths. cotton fibers are the length of the distance of the outside of the fruiting body fluffball to its center, which is in the 1-2 inch range. flax and hemp fibers are made from the plants' stalks, and a single fiber in those is typically over a foot long. however with an appropriately mechanized beating process that doesn't need a minimum stalk length, you could very easily limit the maximum fiber length by cutting the stalks to that length before extracting the fiber.
I work in textile manufacturing; this is absolutely fascinating. The thread count gives you that real sense of how difficult that could have been just to simply engineer it.
@cristinar4033 - I am curious . . . would a fabric with a 1,200 thread count be very strong or would it be fragile??
@@GaiaCarney I think depending on what the yarn is made from. Poly or nylon yarn would create something sheer/thin and would tear easy. I'm no engineer though.
@@cristinar4033might be sheer and thin, but it doesn't breathe properly and feels cold in winter and hot in summer. Natural fibers cool you off in the heat of summer and warm up in the cold of winter
@@tlvance3973 yes, so in my industry, we don't make fabric for clothing. our styles go into making medical products, fish nets, sun shade etc. multiple different products.
I knew the story, but not with the happier ending. How great is it that someone actually took it upon himself to bring this fabric and cotton plant back? In my opinion he’s a hero. Loved this video. Very well put together. Thank you for sharing this.
We were taught in fashion design that the Romans would take imported Chinese silk, unweave it and reweave it into a more sheer version, to increase profit on the rare product. Then someone snuck silk worms out and the silk industry spread.
I come from a family from Dhaka which used to deal in muslin. Please refer to the pages of history, the main reason of death of Dhaka muslin was entirely different. When the Britishers found that their British textile was unable to compete with Dhaka muslin, one day all the master muslin weavers of Dhaka were assembled and their thumbs were chopped off. Since the muslin weavers' finesse depended on their ability to feel the threads with their thumbs, this gory 'operation' by the British ensured that these ' master weavers could no longer create their master pieces. This actually brought an end to the famous Dhaka muslin.
That’s horrible. I can’t imagine the horror that caused.
Thank you for telling this story. My whole life, I heard about how ppl from my village lost their hands to the british and heard my elders tell stories about how the beautiful and fine this fabric was. My great grandmother had a Muslin saree she cherished so much that was so fine that you could fold it into the size of a match box! Such a shame we lost such important work and history
As one who spins fine yarns/thread (and does a lot of fiber based arts/crafts) the shorter fibers would be easier for traditional hand spinning of cotton. The crimp or physical twisty structure of the fiber may also be a contributing factor in how fine the cotton can be spun and remained strong. The smoother the fiber the more likely it will be to not create a strong thread - you'll need more fibers or a mix to keep things together while spinning. I do hope that the plant gets stable and widespread enough for folks like me to get fiber to spin for ourselves.
There are many of us out there all over the world that keep traditional fiber arts alive and well. There are other threads and fibers that were used in lacemaking and clothing that have also been lost or can't be reproduced as fine as they were hundreds of years ago.
This gives me hope.
Have you heard of the very rare Golden fabric made from snail spit or something like that. There's only a few artisans left that know the craft. It was pretty interesting. Thought might enjoy the info. 😊
I love this video so interesting
As a fibre artist I was just thinking sometimes shorter fibres are what you want to work with, with felting sometimes the structure if the fibre is what makes it possible or impossible to felt by itself. Every fibre is different and creates such different end results. I spin, weave, crochet, sew and felt. I mostly do pictures and 3d wool sculpture.
@@kslolohoku2665Actually, The fabric you're thinking of is made of spider silk.
It's still made today, But on a very small scale.
@@TheDowntownHermit-xj6rq nope. It's from a clam.
Watch "spinning silk from the sea"
But spider silk sounds neat too.
Yes I can't remember the name of the clam. I know it's from the Mediterranean Sea and attaches itself to rocks with fine gold coloured threads. The natural gold colour is what makes it so valuable, because apparently it looks like actual gold.
That fabric sounds so lovely - what an interesting story. I hope they will be able to re-create it. I'm not at all surprised that the fabric disappeared because of greed. Time and time again, corporate greed has resulted in substantially inferior products and services for consumers -- and massive suffering for their underpaid, overworked, expendable employees.
Wait till private equity takes over everything including housing
The fine ancient fabric contrasts with the common modern perception of our ancestors running around in dirty rags.
The fabrics may have started fine, but washing probably wasn’t.
They knew how to wash things, how much they did depended on culture and economic status.
That said poor people tended not to buy such things in the first place, like now, you saw the estimated price. Though in England at least clothes were one of the things handed down to servants once they had seen their use, many of which would have had the fabrics repurposed into newer styles if possible and were carefully tended to, to only be worn on special occasions like Sunday's and weddings.
@@oakmaiden2133 I think you'd be surprised at how little washing natural fibers like cotton and wool can actually need.
extremely expensive fabrics are generally washed very little to not damage them. something like muslin could probably hardly be washed or not even washed at all without visible deterioration, becoming uneven. the modern "dry cleaning" industry was invented to clean fabrics without water and with other solvents like volatile hydrocarbons (historically particularly turpentine and naphtha, I think) because most other solvents don't have that effect of water that it softens various fibers, especially cellulose and ceratin (cotton, hemp, linen, and animal hair). that softening makes a water-based washing process, in the process of even the lightest possible agitation to loosen and rinse off dirt (for an expensive fabric, you would agitate as little as possible and instead soak it for longer and of course with effective soaps and such), inevitably shift or even fray fibers, potentially change their length, and when the fabric dries, it inevitably sets in a slightly hardened state in the drying position, which for special fabrics may end up looking identifiably different than a cloth that has never been wet since before the yarn was spun. for example the never washed fabric may have fewer fibers loosely sticking out of its threads, and the preserved smooth roundness of the threads may make them flow more smoothly in the weave, with a previously wet fabric having its threads flatten against each other at the crossing points. there's no putting that toothpaste back in the tube.
@@Ass_of_Amalek i foun d it easy to hand wash fine silk, linen and thin rayon, by soaking a long time like overnight and then not much handling needed , some dipping and swishing and squeezing, the final rinse , dip and let the water run of f it. hang to dry. i think using enzymes in the water like biokleen, i might try next for a long soak. Should work even better. Long soaking made my life easier when i had no washer for a while. Only really dirty clothes need scrubbed.
I feel like this would be very interesting to the historical costuming community, thank you for sharing!
Historical costumer here: I’m absolutely obsessed with Dhaka muslin and extinct textiles in general. I have a small collection of antique fabrics and it’s amazing to see the detail and craftsmanship they achieved. Holding something in your hands that was so difficult to make that it often demanded a lifetime of devotion and resulted in the disability of the craftsperson is a mind blowing experience and a powerful reminder as to how different the world is post Industrial Revolution. There’s something about the quality and feel of these fabrics that is completely alien when compared to modern textiles. They’re simultaneously very human and yet almost supernatural in their unbelievable fineness. You can’t help but wonder about the human who made it and how they made something so beautiful and useful it’s outlived them by hundreds of years.
It's fairly well known in historical costuming
You articulate the beauty of this fabric so well that I see my fingers touching it. I see light passing though.
What I don’t see is the evilness one could inflict to another to stop the ability to create such a delicate fabric.
What a horrid and violent memory the craftsman , family and village forever lived with.
Beauty and peace does exist but not here on earth,
may we all pray for His return soon.
Loved this so much! I fell down a South Asian craftmenship rabbit hole after discovering the peacock dress and everything that was stolen from South Asia. Btw Bengali traditional saree house Aarong has been trying to replicate this style of muslin saree for years. It's not the same since Dhaka muslin is not available so they use other types of muslin, but they work closely with local artisans and weavers to create their sarees and other handicraft pieces. Their most popular sarees are their jamdani sarees (visually similar to muslin), nakshi kantha sarees and katan sarees. They have a website and if you live in the US, they have a shop in NY.
jamdani cloth is one type of Muslin or Cotton Silk from Bangle
As a quilter, I love learning about other textiles. I don’t participate in fast fashion, and I think it’s a real shame that ancient threads, fabrics and sewing techniques are disappearing. Thank you for making this video; bringing it back to life!
A similar thing happened to Scandinavian linen , some artefact clothing has thread count of 1000 but such high quality items are expensive and time consuming to make. Wool however was far cheaper and faster to work so northern Europe relied heavily on wool until the industrial revolution allowed mass processing of flax into linen fibres.
Linen is the bomb, I've just rediscovered it and now handmake most of our clothes from it. Once you've stopped wearing crap fast fashion, you can never go back.
Love learning about different fibers. As someone allergic to polyester and synthetic materials I’ve gained more of an appreciation of different fibers and knowing the history really puts more into perspective thank you.
I always wondered about the prolific use of muslin. In 19th c literature, references are made to “my good muslin” which I interpreted as a very special garment. Thank you for detailing the mystery behind this fashion history!
Thank you for this insight and knowledge! The criminal activity of the East India Co has robbed this world of so much history and culture in the name of blind profit. It feels good to watch this short video 🤍✨🌈 Thank you 🙏
There is a small swath of Medieval linen in the Cluny Museum on the Left Bank of Paris, and it is the most exquisite linen I have ever seen. If is * extremely * fine, unbelievably fine (more so than any contemporary fabric Ive seen), and from the Middle Ages.
In Queen Elizabeth I court, the lowliest courtier, you know, the guy who was forced to stand behind the door of the receiving chamber to make way for the important people, a single doublet worn by this modest courtier cost the equivalent of $50,000 US today.
King Henry VIII had wall tapestries made as a wedding present for Anne Bolyn, which cost the equivalent of one of his battleships.
People in the past respected beauty. People today aren't usually capable of even recognizing it, as shown in the tasteless extravagant of architecture, fashion, and everything else.
The nouveaux riches.
You say that like medieval people didn't have their boors galore (just look at their gaudy costume or their crude, clunky jewelry festooned with gems without regard for how the colors go together), and like we don't have objects of wonder and beauty that far surpass what the people of the Middle Ages dreamt of.
Brutalism and modern art is designed to depress people already gutted by the rat race caused by interest rates. Inspiring induces nationalism which breaks the hold of the current elites in power. This is why they brand anything that gives people inspiration as being racist, supremacist, fascist etc.
*SWATCH* not swath.
The majority of the population could not afford fine fabrics. Appreciation of fine things was limited to an extremely small number of people, the rest were serfs.
Swatch, a small sample.
Swathe, a length of material. Maybe..!
Fun facts, 'calico' is derived from the old name of Kolkata/Calcutta. In the English cotton mills, there was a constant cloud of cotton fibers floating in the air which made management expressly forbid smoking, lighting a match or a candle. An open flame would explode across the entire floor of the factory. That's why most mills had those giant windows, for light. Many of the workers developed fatal lung disease from inhaling the fine floating fibers. If it's not Dhaka muslin, it's just cheap cotton??
sure, but it's still muslin, just not dhaka muslin.
calico means Calicut, northern Kerala port city
❤🎉😮
Wow! I'm a costume historian and had never heard that story. That is simply incredible. Maybe even more incredible is that humans have, working under sometimes primitive conditions, made items of such incredible beauty and quality. I think not only of the silks and this muslin, but also of some of the laces. It's incredible.
I understand that you'd be amazed, given what the white colonizers have taught you. We were far from primitive when the colonizers came and used a traitor to take over bengal. We were, at that point in time, the documented richest land of the whole globe.
Yeah , hardships of colonised people are not told out in the open
@@tanhanunna6815perhaps he is not form the indian subcontinent but a westerner to. Why you always polarizing.
That's the tenacity and resourcefulness of the brown skin.
The greed and jealousy of White skinned colonizers forced such knowledge to disappear. Not that the Brits could ever create something as fine as Dhaka Muslin.
Tf is a costume historian? Sounds super niche
What an amazing story. I work in manufacturing goods from a variety of different fabrics, and one thing that became evident in the one year I've been in the industry is how enormously underpaid the crafters are.
Greed ruins everything it touches.
The fact that the plant still exists is astounding. Greed has destroyed so very much that is beautiful in this world
My mind cannot fathom how fine a 1,200 thread count of a fabric is! This ancient fabric really put me into an absolute awe.
What's more amazing, is that somebody trying to rediscover this treasure. I wish these people all the best that one day we will see this fabric again.
I haven’t watched to the end yet, however, I have often wondered where such fine, gossamer like fabrics came from. The skills of our ancestors in spinning and weaving are fascinating. Thank you for sharing - now I will watch the rest.
This is first time I found someone except me talking about Dhakai Moslin. Thank you ❤
As a costumer, I always wondered about that fabric.
It's actually a more brutal and barbaric story than just " a lost art"... Young girls, who were the weavers, had their hands chopped off and artisans were killed by the British to eliminate the competition.
The art wasn't lost it was destroyed.
Nope the British chopping hands of weavers is a myth that historians have denunked
As a spinner, hearing your description of the fibers of the other cotton type drives home just how skilled these artisans were. Spinning cotton by hand is much harder than wool or other animal fibers because it is SO slippery by comparison. I genuinely can't even imagine spinning with short cotton fibers by hand. I'm sure it would have taken YEARS to master this craft and the production of this thread. It's sad to think how greed destroyed such an amazing tradition.
I've speak the last 2 years learning to spin and weave, knit and crochet my own home produced fiber. Mainly because I don't want to be dependent on industrialists for anything, but also natural curiosity. I can't imagine stringing a loom for 1,000 threads per inch. I'm amazed by that. Wow!
It's interesting how "civilization" always tries to take possession of anything that is truly unique. And then proceed to destroy it somehow.
You are so right in saying that progress always causes lost and hardship wherever it strikes…….. bravo !
not true. if so then progress is simply a misnomer for that thing.
I make bobbin lace - actually my grandmother made lace too (not sure about earlier ancestors). This story of the loss of fineness in thread is interesting because there's a similar trajectory in hand-made lace. I wonder if it has the same kind of history.
The stuff made 150 or more years ago could be so much finer than what we can make today even with the finest threads. Old fine laces can be incredibly beautiful. Mind you, the fine stuff takes an age to make - even with today's finest threads
I love lace. The closest thing I ever see to handmade lace is crocheted doily. So pretty! I can't imagine a finer handmade lace, must be gorgeous!!
It's a shame not many online content creators talk about handmade lace😢
@@MA-2020 OK perhaps I should make some videos - I'm hardly an expert though
Ultimate capitalism: Unfettered greed destroys everything it values. The snake devours its tail. That is the lesson all industry needs to learn.
How many graphic tees do you own?
@@carissstewart3211 not many are decorative enough
I hope the man can somehow manage it! Good luck to him, the fabric he is already making is gorgeous! Maybe get ahold of some silk weavers and spinners, especially those making it out of silk cocoons that the moths have hatched from...
It's see-through, not very practical.
@@zyxw2000 You say that like there aren't entire industries devoted towards impractical things of little real substance.
I'd be very interested on your take of the paisley shawl. Another South Asia creation, found by the British, and 'acquired' to be made more cheaply and in mass quantity in UK factories.
Being a little bit interested in historical fashion and classic literature, I always vaguely wondered, why the famed 'fine muslin' of ye olde times wasn't a thing anymore. Yet another tale from history, that makes you sigh in despair.
Thank you! I got over 2 metres of italian flax muslin, almost equivalent to this vanished Decca? Muslin. Pricey, yet exquisite thin floating material. Everybody believes it is silk but it aint. It resembles of ancient egyptian royal fabric with its thin, dense, sheer quality. This fabric was used by Valentino studios couple of years ago for a haute couture collection. I also purchased some linen fabric from 1600- century, this Tudor time flax has a golden lustre, and lignin the modern flax lacks. I sew a shirt/ blouse of the linen muslin ( can be pulled through a ring!) and line my ancestral folklore costume with 1600- century flax. I sample textiles when traveling, maybe my blood heritage from my mom. I am chef and artist, when I dont paint, I sew. I am definately going to follow you!
I read once in a book about "Kos silk". It was supposed to be the sheer fabric worn in those statues like the Nike of Samothrace. However I can't find more info about the fabric. All I know is that it's sheer and that they allow the moth to emerge from the cocoon. Can you look into it?
5:15 Not to mention that one acre of land will yield exponentially more cotton than wool or silk. Cotton isn't dependent on one specific animal, needs less care (no feeding, no herding, no constant protection, etc.), and can produce multiple harvests in the right climate. You know... Like the American south... In the 1750's... I can imagine that plantation-grown cotton was another huge industry disruptor in textiles. British merchants vested in wool and silk must have been especially frustrated to have TWO major, high-quality cotton producing colonies coming at them from both ends of the empire, lol.
Don't cotton consume a lot of water?
@@TaLeng2023 Depends on where you grow it. In wet climates, it doesn't. But a lot of cotton is grown in quite dry climates where it can use disastrous amounts of irrigation, destroying the entire area it is grown in. Read about the area around the Aral Sea, made into a toxic desert by cotton.
Cotton did not become the cash crop of the American South until the early 1800’s, post-Revolution.
Bamboo is better, so is hemp.
The British in fact supported the cotton cultivation in both the South and India, they took the raw materials and manufactured them in England. This almost caused them to back the South in the civil war but anti-slavery sentiments ran too high with the British public. What happened in this case like many was simple short sighted greed by a corporate body.
The internal policy of the British Empire itself was a bit all over the place as the free traders and protectionists were fighting within the political system for quite a while over which approach would balance the books of an extremely expensive empire better, of course both sides were thinking of it in terms of the Empire paying for itself rather than the fact that it made England rich and thus able to cover it. The assumption in giving it up was that outgoings would be got rid of but income would remain the same. Basically they just proved why great empires either don't remain great or don't remain democratic, as they don't last when run by fools.
This story is so sad, but I feel that there has been a Renaissance of sorts going on into bringing back the lost arts. I wated a video where the Indians were able to spin clith so fine that a whole sari was said to be able to fit through the eye of a needle. No machine has ever been able to reproduce theads so fine. I don't know if its true, I hope it is, but guess its proof that human can do better than machines. I sincerely hope to see the Doca Muslin come back from the dead in my lifetime. That would be so awesome.
So fascinating a subject. Thank you so much. As a fabric junkie you have fueled my dreams of visiting various exhibits. I hope that Mr. Islam continues his work and resurrects Dakka muslin.
As someone who likes eastern fashion history, I’ve always seen recreations of clothing like hanfu and get kinda stuck up and snobby whenever I see sheer fabric being used, but then seeing Tang Dynasty paintings having sheer fabric and wondering why doesn’t it look “correct” in the online recreations. I’ve stepped off my high horse, but this explains why. The sheer fabrics of now don’t quite measure up to the ones of the older days, and even modern muslin falls short.
Im so glad some still put artisanship and beauty ahead of profiteering. What beautiful fabric. Has huge potential.❤
This is rare. I subscribed after watching one video. Please keep creating content like this.
Hi!
I just wanted to drop a comment to thank you for this interesting, well researched, and excellently presented piece.
So many presenters try to make topics (particularly history) interesting by becoming over-hyped in their narration. It's refreshing to find someone who just has a conversation and tells the story- without boring you to tears.
No doubt that is a fine line to walk, and you seem to have danced your way along, effortlessly.
Quality content is hard to find, and takes so much work to produce. Thank you for sharing your gift.
I'm just happy that someone is trying to revive it !
As a person who loves to sew when possible I was clearly born TOO late. Thank you for a very fascinating, interesting video with great content!!! 😘❤❤❤❤
there's still PLENTY out there to choose from !
Mystery solved! I've always been confused by the references of "fine" muslin in historical books, unable to reconcile the description with muslin as I know it today. It's so wonderful that this tradition is being revived. Thank you for sharing!
There is a newish term my daughter taught me this year. “Enshittification”. Look it up on Wikipedia or “Wired”. It is the perfect description of what happens when greed rears its ugly head.
Greed destroys everything and everyone it touches. I love this story and appreciate how you’ve presented it. Thank You! Great history lesson! 👍👍
This was a culmination of atleast 5000 years of cotton weaving, IVC was trading cotton with Mesopotamia, Muslin export started around the silk route from Gujarat then it was absolutely perfected by the guilds in Dhaka. If only the British weren't so hellbent on their trash Manchester cotton shoving it down everyone's throats.
Omg this brings me soooo much joy!! To see that it is being brought back 😍❤️
Wow. Thank you. As someone who comes from generations of women that work with fabrics, I really appreciate this history lesson. I wish more people would understand what this art means to our world today in order to build their clothing selection on quality not quantity. Even repurposing their clothes before they just discard them would be wonderful for our mother earth.
Sewing, and, working with fabrics has brought the women of my family joy and creative expression.
Thank You very much.
Ancient Egyptians in their tomb paintings and carvings are sometimes depicted wearing very sheer fabrics as well - maybe they also produced something like this.
Some information get lost in time hope they will find some information
Found this through tiktok, thank you for the super interesting and well made video! 👌
A s a spinner and weaver, having researched and applied that research, most of the cotton used today is Upland cotton. It is a very short staple cotton. The longer staples are Egyptian. Sea Island and Supima. The story goes that since the longer stapled cottons were susceptible to the bol weavil and did not fit into the cotton gin, Upland became favored. The Industrial Revolution caused eradication of many varieties, and not just cotton. There was also naturally colored cottons, which Sally Fox tried to bring back, like she did with the tan colored Levi jeans, but having been sued by other cotton growers for contaminating their cotton fields, she finally decided to call it quits.
Their was also a variety of linen which wove sheer fabric. Lost to us now.
That is so interesting! The fabric is so translucent even though the thread count is high. Thank you for sharing!!
I heard from my mother , about this beautiful cloth, so glad it's being reproduced again, bravo the team who made it possible
1:47
"In the 1700s" (shows video footage from the late 19th and early 20th centuries)
Yes you’re correct! Apologies, ran out of stock footage.
@@AhmedZaidi paintings could work too
thank you. I never knew all this. I feel so sad, again, at how artisans and profit clashed. Also today, fewer but better should be our motto always.
some people need cheap, but your statement is also important for some.
Fascinating!! Thank you for making this video.
A similar effort has been started in West Bengal, India. A Government enterprise, Bishwa Bangla, has started recreating the muslin fabric (although not yet at the 1000 threads per square inch) and producing ready made garments made with the fabric. I have purchased several- they are the best shirts I own for both comfort and appearance. If it was good enough for Moghuls and Mary Antoinette, I am not complaining.
Thank you for this very interesting video. Could you please do one on chintz? I am fromI ndonesia and Indonesians loved hand painted chintz from India. I heard that the hand painted chintz industri was destroyed by the British with their industrialcloth mills. When this happened in the 19th centruy, the disappearance of Indian hand painted chintz left a great vacum in Indonesia and to full the need we began creating had made batiks that looked like chintz both in colour as well as design. It changed the whole batik industry inIndonesia.
I random clicked, and what a reward! I found this so very interesting, although also very sad. Worldwide, we have destroyed so much. So many crafts, so much independence and human creativity of the most beautiful kind.
It's a lesson that all industries have not heeded, not just textiles.
What a fantastic video! Thank you!
Thank you for this amazing story!
Fascinating. Thank you.
Absolutely correct.... sadly. Profit has no respect for any human creativity or the planet itself.
Excellent video thank you for sharing ❤️
Thanks for watching!
Great video man! Found you on TikTok and was shocked you don’t have more subscribers!
wow this is such an interesting story and I'm glad that people research onto this to recreate it again! As someone who sews as a hobby I've always wondered what kind of sheer fabrics they used on their garments in those old paintings!
An IMPORTANT TRUTH has been omitted. The people who twisted the thread were MADE to grow 'indigo'. Refusal would result in having the thumbs cut off !!
Nope the british cutting the fingers of indian artisans is a myth that has been debunked by historians multiple times 🤦🤡
I read in my history classes in my high school in Bangladesh that they used to be taken into "Neel Kuthis" (Neel in Bangla = indigo, kuthi in Bangla = house/office) and tortured or jailed there too for refusing to grow indigo. Sometimes the farmer's families would be punished. That indigo basically destroyed the fertility of the soil, which was used for growing crops.
This is fascinating. Thank you!
I love seeing these traditional arts come back. Our modern world has tried so vary hard to stop out artisans and craftsman in the name of progress and efficiency throughout the modern age.
So I stumbled across this vid in my homepage today, and I immediately sub'd after watching. You've got such a talent for narrating and teaching and I am very excited to binge your prior content.
When the world breaks, and I don't mean the end of the world, just when we've had enough or can't get enough anymore, I hope we are all blessed to know someone with these skills. Save your pedal sewing machines and learn how to use them. I've always thought that if push came to shove, I could dress my family because I know how to sew. They might not look great, but they'd have clothes. Knowing how to create the fabric is a whole other thing.
Thank you so much for a fascinating documentary.
Well done and well said!!! Very knowledgeable and insightful presentation.
Fascinating. Thankyou.
The images that did not match what you were speaking about were maddening. Dancing Edwardians when talking about the C18th!
thank you!!! bugged me too lol
I really enjoyed learning this. Thanks.
The obsession about lower-cost clothing is driven by corporate greed and we Americans’ insistence on finding the cheapest possible apparel. CZcams abounds with hauls featuring Walmart, Shein, etc. We have lost touch with the actual cost of quality materials and construction, and ethical and environmentally safe practices. So long as Americans buy $5 polyester tops and $10 jeans, the market will continue to provide such things. By number of dollars, not present value, clothes cost the same as they did when I was a teenager fifty years ago. That is, a light jacket was about $30-40, a woman’s top $10-20, etc., and they are still the same number of dollars today. But the dollar is worth so much less now, they shpuld cost 4 to 5 times as much (as many dollars). The only way to accomplish what is essentially cutting the actual cost to one-fifth or so is to cheapen production, sacrificing quality, people’s freedom and well-being and our environment. Don’t buy this cheap crap, we consumers are part of the problem. I just bought two very high-quality Euro-grown and -made linen summer dresses for $225 each. That reflects the true cost of making these responsible, quality clothes. I know I will wear and treasure them for the rest of my life, so I didn’t mind the high cost. I realize not everyone can afford that price point, but it’s better to buy fewer, natural-fiber, responsibly-made clothing items, or secondhand. (Linen grows wild in its natural environment, most of Europe, and needs no irrigation, fertilizers or pesticides. European labor laws protect all workers from exploitation).
I can’t possibly afford $500 in dresses, be it 2 or 10
I can afford a $10 pr of jeans
So that’s what I wear
as a material scientist i am intrigued
As a seamstress and indologist, I really appreciate your video 🤩 thank you for bringing this fascinating story to life with your beautifully made video 👌❤️
Thank you! :) -- Just subscribed to your channel
@@AhmedZaidi how nice of you! I subscribed from my private account, will do from this one too!😊❤ I am looking forward to your next video!
A very interesting video. I sure wish the music wasn't so loud. I had to turn the sound down and turn closed captioning on because I could barely hear you over the music.
Fabulous video!
Great thank you for creating this video.
Cool. Very well done video. Interesting topic well presented. Thanks..
One must realize how precious 1 article of beautifully made clothing can be. So sad we live in such a throw away society.
Oh this was so interesting, I love fabric and so enjoyed this story. thank you
Indian cloths - of all varieties - had always been the most sought after and valuable in the world.
It is even reflected in languages such as Turkish. Where, when you ask someone if they believe themselves to be anything special you say: "What do you think you are? An Indian fabric?" ❤