Origins of Silk
Quick answer
Silk is reeled today in a small number of regions, and the region shows up in the fibre. Chinese silk is smooth and satiny with a creamy natural tone; Japanese silk is similar in colour with a refined, even hand; Italian silk is soft, rich in colour and often carries a subtle yellow cast; Indian silk tends toward a warmer, more textured character.
Our silk comes from Suzhou, in the Yangtze delta — the historic heart of Chinese sericulture, where mulberry silk has been reeled and woven for millennia. In practice, origin is decided by three things: the water and climate the mulberry grows in, how the cocoons are reeled, and how the raw silk is twisted and finished.
Where silk comes from today
The fibre begins on a mulberry plantation. Silkworms are raised indoors on chopped mulberry leaf for roughly a month, spin their cocoons, and the cocoons are then dried or steamed and reeled into raw silk. Everything downstream — throwing, dyeing, weaving, printing, finishing — happens in mills, and those mills cluster in a few places.
| Origin | Character of the silk | What it is usually chosen for |
|---|---|---|
| China (Suzhou, Hangzhou, the Yangtze delta) | Smooth, satiny, creamy white natural colour. Long, even filaments. | Fine printed scarves and twill. The largest and most established silk-reeling region. |
| Japan | A similar cream tone with a refined, very even hand. | Precision fabrics and traditional kimono silk, where uniformity matters most. |
| Italy (Como) | Soft, colour-rich, often with a subtle yellow cast. | Printed luxury scarves, where dyeing and colour depth are the priority. |
| India | Warmer in tone and more textured; a large share is spun rather than reeled. | Saris, textured silks and heavier fabrics. |
Why origin shows up in the finished scarf
Origin is not a label — it is a set of physical conditions. Four of them reach the finished product.
The mulberry and the water
The mulberry leaf a silkworm eats decides the colour and fineness of the filament. Mulberry grown in a given soil and climate produces a characteristic tone, which is why Chinese raw silk reads creamy and some other origins read yellower or greyer before dyeing.
How the cocoon is reeled
Reeling is the step that turns a cocoon into a usable thread. Filament length and evenness are decided here. A well-reeled raw silk gives fewer slubs and a more uniform yarn, and that uniformity stays visible in the finished cloth no matter how good the printing is.
Throwing and twist
Before weaving, raw silk is thrown — plied and twisted. Crepe de chine depends entirely on this step: its pebbled surface comes from twisting some yarns clockwise and others counterclockwise, not from the weave. Change the twist and you have a different fabric with the same name.
Dyeing and finishing
Dyeing is where a region's craft tradition is most obvious. Colour depth and how evenly a shade sits across a length of cloth are the result of dyehouse practice, water quality and experience with the fibre — and it is the step that most separates a scarf that photographs well from one that looks flat in daylight.
Suzhou, and why our silk comes from there
Suzhou sits in the Yangtze delta, where sericulture has been continuous for thousands of years. The region has the three things silk needs: mulberry, soft water, and a deep bench of people who have reeled, thrown and dyed silk for their whole working lives. Silk has been woven there for over six thousand years, and the skills that surround it did not appear recently.
Our own looms and finishing are in Zhenze, in Wujiang District — part of that same delta silk cluster, roughly an hour from Suzhou city. That matters practically rather than romantically: reeling, throwing, dyeing, weaving and finishing are within reach of each other, so a specification can be adjusted without shipping half-finished cloth across a continent.
What origin does and does not tell you
It is worth being precise, because origin is often used as a shortcut for quality and it is not one.
- Origin tells you the tradition and the conditions the fibre grew in. It is a real signal about the character of the silk.
- Origin does not tell you the momme, the weave, the printing method or how the edge was finished. Those are the decisions that change what the scarf is, and they are all made later.
- Origin does not tell you the grade of the raw filament. Two mills in the same town buy from different reeling houses, and the difference is not visible on a label.
- The useful question is never only "where is it from" — it is "where is it from, and what was done with it". Those two answers together are a specification.
This is why we would rather be asked the second question.
Questions we are asked about silk origins
Where does silk come from originally?
Silk cultivation began in China more than six thousand years ago, and China held the knowledge as a state monopoly for centuries. The main silk-reeling regions today are China, India, Japan, Italy, Brazil and a number of Southeast Asian countries.
Is Chinese silk as good as Italian silk?
They are different rather than ranked. Chinese raw silk is characteristically smooth and satiny with a creamy tone; Italian silk work is known for dyeing and colour depth on cloth that is often woven from imported raw silk. Neither origin guarantees a quality level — the grade of the raw filament and the finishing do.
What does "mulberry silk" mean?
It means the silkworms were fed on mulberry leaves — Bombyx mori. It is the finest and most uniform commercial silk, and it is the fibre we work in. Tussah and eri silks come from other species and behave differently.
Does the country of origin affect the price?
It affects the cost of the raw silk, but it is usually not the largest line on a quotation. Weave, momme, printing method, colour count and edge finish move the unit cost more than origin does.
Where to go next
For the fibre itself, read what silk is. For what happens to it after reeling, read types of silk — the eight weaves we produce in. And for the regional history behind the fibre, a 6,000-year heritage. If you want to see the cloth, the fabric pages cover each weave we work in.
Sourcing a silk scarf programme? Send the artwork, the format and the quantity, and we will come back with a specification and a price.
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