International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

Designing fov Silks


ESIGNING FOR SILKS

DThe Chinese kept their methods of
rearing silk worms and reeling silk a
profound secret for nearly two thousand
years. There is still something Chinese in the mys-
tery that is thrown round the latest pattern or the
newest weave. One no longer needs, of course, to be
a monk and carry a hollow pilgrim stave to the land
of the Dragon and run the risk of the headsman’s
chopping block to procure silkworm eggs. But then
if one is American, he has no furtive passion for
silkworm eggs. Fearing nothing traditionally, or
at least nothing
eise, the nation
has a wholesome
fear of t h e s e
larvae. It has too
often burned its
fingers, as in the
disasters of the
War of Inde-
pendence, the
White Mulberry
Bubble of 1839,
the blight of the
drastic winter
weather of 1844.
But if you set
out to uncover
what the clesign-
ers in silk are
doing at the mo-
rnent, as you
might be moved
to take a glance
at the fresh
achievements of
the potters or the
wall paper mak-
ers or the iron
workers, you
could as well sit
on the roof and
watch for an un-
announced com-
et. You come at
once upon the
Chinese wall of
fashion. For it
is fashion that
preserves the
an eien t romance
of silk. In the sketch, one wash

matter of dress, where silk manufacture has a large
Held, we now generally obey the sumptuary laws of
Tiberius and Vespasian and surrender the use of
silk to women; and as men, dandies and artistic
temperaments excepted, press every nerve to dress
as if they all belonged to one civilian regiment, so
women rarely abandon the quest of the slight finesse
of difference. At least the tailor-made gown—
though all such generalizations are dangerous sail-
ing—is not typically a thing of silk.
It happens at any rate that there is something
appropriately feminine and invincibly romantic
about one of the oldest of textile industries so plenti-

MISS SIMONSON

XI