The mystical wonder of spider silk! Yes, hence the name – spider silk is in fact produced by spiders. Spiders use their silk to produce webs and it is actually a very durable material – sometimes as strong as steel! Spider silk has produced exquisite silk fabric and a luxury golden shawl which is incredibly rare. Spider silk isn’t a commonly used material for silk garments as it is near impossible to mass produce spider silk due to spiders’ cannibalistic nature when housed together. That’s why spider silk is such a luxury and rare fabric.
So how were the only known spider silk garments produced?
Textile designer Simon Peers and development economist Nicholas Godley managed to harvest spider silk and produce a cape and shawl from the rare, superb quality silk. The beautiful golden coloured shawl was created using the silk of over two million madagascan spiders and took over two decades to produce. The result however was phenomenal! The shawl is a stunning shimmering gold which was not colour treated or dyed – the colour coming from the silk produced by the spiders. Many experienced the magnificent silk beauty in the V&A Museum in London. Find out more about their exhibition here.
Given the time and scale of this project, we can’t expect to see spider silk garments for our use being produced anywhere soon, but scientists are so fascinated by this super strong and beautiful silk that a synthetic option is on the cards. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a synthetic spider silk that is said to outperform some of the properties found in natural spider silk.
We don’t know about you but we’re keeping our eyes peeled for spider silk alternatives entering the market!
