Sea Silk – the forgotten art of textile

By Mariia Bublykova, Year 12

Sea silk, pinna silk, sea wool, fish wool, or even byssus—these names all refer to a rare fabric that was highly valued in past centuries for its naturally iridescent brown-golden color. It is a strong, elastic, and delicate cloth, surrounded by myths and legends. The art of making this textile, once greatly appreciated, is largely forgotten today and almost irreversibly lost.

The fabric was, and still is, produced from the byproducts of a mollusk called the noble pen shell (Pinna nobilis), which is the largest seashell inhabiting the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The noble pen lives as long as 25 years, sometimes reaching a height of 1 meter. The mollusk is typically found in the precoital seaweed, with its lower part planted into the sand, as deep as one-third of the total size of its shell. Its thin yet strong filaments anchor it to the ground, ensuring it won’t be carried away by the current. These filaments are three times thinner than human hair, yet their strength and elasticity allow them to reach lengths of up to 20 cm in some cases. They are used to create one of the most luxurious fabrics in human history, known as sea silk

In order to produce the material, first the seashells are harvested and the fibers are cut off, then the filaments are rinsed in fresh water, before being dried and combed, and only then spun into fine threads that can be then be woven directly into fabric. Used for knitting or embroidery. In the past, the mollusk was usually killed in the first stages of the process. However, since the species was declared endangered in a decree law in 1992, the filament is now collected without damaging the organism, and the shell is put back in place after. Despite potentially seeming simple, the process is much more complicated than it might look at first glance. One of the main complications of the whole process lies in the inaccessibility of the raw material in the “desired” quantities. In a hundred open water dives, it is only possible to get about 300 grams of raw material, which after processing, makes up about 30 grams of clean material– only 14 meters of fine thread. In one year it is only possible to collect approximately 600 grams, and just like that, even the simplest sea silk pieces can easily take years to complete. On the other hand, there are the fibers themselves—thin and extremely delicate in the early stages—which can be easily damaged if mishandled during the long and intricate preparation process. The washing alone takes at least 25 days, with fresh water being replaced every three hours, day and night. If this is not done, the fiber begins to crumble, and the sample is ruined. 

Today, there is only one person left, who still knows how to weave the sea silk thread – Chiara Vigo, a sea silk master in the 28th generation, keeping the thousands of years old history alive in Sardinia (Italy).

“Chiara Vigo, sea-silk master”

While in the 21st century, the art of crafting sea silk is on the verge of extinction, with only a few surviving pieces preserved in museums and just 60 available for the general public to view worldwide. Not long ago, on the scale of history, just about a thousand years ago, and up until the early 20th century—it was a thriving industry, dressing some of the most influential people of the time.

One of the first written evidences for sea-silk production dates back to around 210 CE. The church father Tertullian mentions it in his text De Pallio (III, 6), where he complains about the luxury of clothing: “Nor was it enough to comb and sow the materials for a tunic, it was necessary also to fish for one’s dress; For fleeces are obtained from the sea, where shells of extraordinary size are furnished with tufts of mossy hair.” From Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages, several other written references exist – all paraphrased as there was no specific term for sea silk at the time. This led to confusion and the creation of myths and legends surrounding the rare material. However, the first surviving material evidence of sea silk dates to the fourth century CE. A fragment was found in a woman’s tomb in Aquincum (modern-day Budapest), a Roman settlement near the northeastern frontier of the Empire. The oldest surviving item is a knitted sea silk cap found in the Saint-Denis Cathedral near Paris, dating to the fourteenth century CE. Given the material’s high cost and rarity, most of the oldest items have been discovered either in tombs or churches, belonging to wealthy aristocrats or important religious figures of the time. 

“Sea-Silk cap via Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, F-Saint Denis.” / “The chasuble of St. Yves in Louannec”

Both items were found at quite a significant distance from the coastal line where it was most likely produced, following a similar trend as the other finds were often discovered deep into the mainland, suggesting that the material was sold and traded at significant distances. Some mentions of the rare fiber extend even to China, as the fiber was traded along the Silk Road. Stories from Chinese traders dating back to the second and third centuries tell legends of “Water sheep, with duck-like webbed feet”, “said to live beneath the waves of the Roman Empire, and occasionally leave tufts of their golden wool on rocks”- a possible inspiration for the myth of the Golden Fleece. Similar stories appear in accounts of 13th-century Arab traders: “One of the wonders of this sea is what is told regarding a certain animal which comes out of the water to rub itself on the sure, whereby its hair falls out. These have the color of gold and the softness of [embroidery silk] …. The value of a garment amounts to more than a thousand gold pieces, owing to its beauty and rarity.” And yet, despite its rarity and status, sea silk couldn’t withstand competition with another precious material we all know today – silk, produced by silkworms and exported from China into Europe during the same period. “Regular” silk was much easier to make, requiring less time and hard labor, and was already produced in much greater quantities. Additionally, at that very period, the first signs of insufficient consumption of the pen shell started showing as its quantity began declining, making the production of sea silk even more complicated. The tradition survived, living on in many small pre-coastal towns, though only as a shadow of its former glory. We still have physical proof of sea silk being produced and sold in items from the Renaissance to the Victorian era, as well as rare mentions in fashion catalogs. However, the number of sea silk artisans continued to decrease year after year. By the start of the 20th century, the pen shell population faced a dramatic decline due to its sensitivity to climate change and industrial pollution of the waters, leading to the complete demise of the once-great industry along the coastlines of the Mediterranean Sea—the “death” of a thousand-year-old craft.

(Four women of the Atelier Italo Diana, Sant’Antioco, Sardinia, in the 1930s. (https://costume.mini.icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/Milan_2016_Proceedings_-_Maeder.pdf p6))

In conclusion, sea silk is not solely another rare type of fabric, cherished throughout human history for its beauty, gold-like appearance as well as physical properties like heat and cold isolation and fineness, but a testament to human creativity in craftsmanship, a source for fascination and an inspiration for numerous myths in numerous corners of the world, and a unique, rich source of archeological and historical knowledge, able to tell more than it might seem about both the political-economical, social and environmental state of the world at the time.

Bibliography

1. https://youtu.be/vA2CXNFjytc?si=17T8DYOnGsyyocTA 
2. https://costume.mini.icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/Felicitas_Maeder_Toronto_article_PDF.pdf 
3. https://seasilk.org/history/
4. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33691781 
5. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/sea-silk-rarest-thread-italy-clams-textiles-fabric 
6. https://www.technofashionworld.com/byssus-weaving-of-sea-silk/ 
7. https://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/sea-s 
8. https://costume.mini.icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/Felicitas_Maeder_Toronto_article_PDF.pdf 
9. https://costume.mini.icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/12/Milan_2016_Proceedings_-_Maeder.pdf 
10. https://thethinkersgarden.com/odd-truths-silk-from-the-depths-of-the-sea/ 
11. https://www.technofashionworld.com/byssus-weaving-of-sea-silk/ 

Images links

1. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.villeinitalia.fr%2Fblog%2Fen-sardaigne-le-byssus-est-lor-de-la-mer%2F&psig=AOvVaw2rmgLu0ysbQTSPT49BpfLm&ust=1740860511536000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCPDY9_2Y54sDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE – cover
2. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c9406c9e5f7d15c9f41aa1a/b0bb172c-7c75-4c61-8ef0-3f17163396db/Pinna-Nobilis.png – shema1 (shell)
3. https://blog.mares.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/periska-1-1024×683.jpg – image1 (shell photo)
4. https://muschelseide.ch/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Muschelseide-ch-Muetze-St.Denis_.jpg – image3 (sea-silk cap)
5. https://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/byssus.jpg – image3 (sea-silk chasuble of St. Yves in Louannec)
6. https://i0.wp.com/www.sardinienreporter.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/chiara_vigo_h.jpg?ssl=1 – image4 (Chiara Vigo photo)