WORLD OF SILK: LYON
[2008]
[2008]
Silk is as closely woven through the city of Lyon as are its two rivers, the Rhône and the Saône.
And the stories it tells brings the city’s history to life every day.
By Jane Sandilands
They are in their hundreds, women forming a not-so-orderly queue, waiting to get into Lyon’s annual Silk Markets: le Marché des Soies. It is the first afternoon of the four-day Market, held in late November, and the security guards are counting as each woman goes through the door, stopping them when crush level is reached. There is the occasional monsieur, but at this silk party, the guests are mainly women.
And they are not here for frocks but for the fabric, in the piece, by the metre, by the bolt, by the square: any way at all. Then the threads with which to sew them, the buttons, the ribbons and braids for decoration. Over forty silk manufacturers are here but it is a true market: customers jostling, picking up one bolt or piece, putting it down, only to regret the action when someone else picks it up. Sensibly, no money changes hands at the stalls. Instead, once the fabric is acquired, it goes into a bag with a description, exchanged for a piece of paper and a price. This is taken to one of the four cash registers at the entrance, paid for, the paper stamped with red ink and the successful customer braves the tide of people again to secure the silk.
It was no accident that Lyon was chosen to be France’s home of silk. In 1536, Francois 1 invited Italian silk weavers to Lyon to teach the Lyonnais their skills. They gave Lyon city not only its silk legacy, but also the colours that pervade the old city of Vieux Lyon: the ochres, pinks and terracotta. This was also the time when the traboules (covered passageways) came into being, linking the streets so the silk could be transported without exposure to the weather. Three hundred traboules traversed the city and today, many form the entrances to a web of apartments. Because the traboules are regarded as so important to the city’s silk history, the City of Lyon has an arrangement with those apartment owners to keep them unlocked during daylight hours.
At the Maison des Canuts (literally House of Silkworkers) a family tree shows the progression of silk. Because silkworms feed only on mulberry leaves, another king, the well-loved and progressive Henri IV, wanted to ensure they could eat French-bred mulberry leaves, making the industry fully integrated. In a happy coincidence of timing, the agronomist Olivier de Serres established the first mulberry trees in the South of France in 1599.
By 1660 there were more than 3000 silk weavers in Lyon and in 1667, under Louis XIV, finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert regulated the industry for commerce and gave Lyon the sole privilege to weave silk. It was a monopoly the city has treasured ever since. Silk was declared a royal fabric, so in court circles, one simply could not be seen wearing anything else.
Before the 1789 Revolution, which lasted for almost ten years, silk was in high demand: the favourite of court and clergy, it enjoyed enormous patronage and its quality and design were highly developed. After the Revolution it was a different story. The aristocrats were either gone or very quiet and the clergy also took a low profile. In those few years, from 1798 to 1804, silk languished.
In the early 19 th century, two events combined to return silk to its rightful place in the French firmament. One was Napoleon. Even before he became Emperor, he was a supporter and defender of the Lyonnais. He liked the city and at one stage, tiring of Paris, thought of moving to Lyon and re-naming it (modestly) Napoleonville. Napoleon gave astonishingly large orders for silk fabric to furnish various palaces. The Musée des Tissus, Lyon’s museum celebrating silk, records “the great order for Versailles in 1811: 58,326 yards of plain fabric, 27,250 of figured silk”. He also ordered that the French ladies of court wore only silk, another boost to production.
The second momentous event to secure the fortunes of silk was the Jacquard loom, developed by Joseph Jacquard in 1801 and based on earlier inventions. Although initially opposed by silk workers, who feared the loss of the handweaving trade, the Jacquard loom opened silk weaving to a whole new market. Today, hand weaving still exists, and the guide at the Maison des Canuts estimates its cost at €2000 (about $AUD3320) a metre, with 30 centimetres being woven in a day.
During the mid-19 th century, the Canuts wove silk for other European courts, including those of
Catherine of Russia and the English court.
With the advent of fibres such as nylon and polyester after World War II, the knowledge of silk manufacturers was adapted to these new materials. While the traditional silk industry for fabrics and clothing is alive and well, innovative applications using its methods are evident in areas literally as modern as tomorrow. So the textile threads used in the nose of the Concorde, in Formula One racing cars, in the aeronautic industry, in space shuttles, all are woven in the area of the Rhône-
Alpes with Lyon at its centre.
Today, throughout Lyon, silk is a constant presence: at the commercial Soierie, where downstairs one can see silk being printed and buy the result upstairs: a tie perhaps, or a scarf, designed in Paris. The rue Auguste Comte could well be re-named rue de Soie: a visit to two or three of these small boutiques could furnish a drawing room, dress one for a ball, or have a small souvenir in a silk scarf of a colour so subtle it defies description.
And at the Maison des Canuts, where 30,000 visitors come each year (and 20,000 take the tour), reflecting Lyon’s pride in its industry, Emilie, our tour guide, says “But of course people come here. It is part of our patrimony.”
©Jane Sandilands
Silk is as closely woven through the city of Lyon as are its two rivers, the Rhône and the Saône.
And the stories it tells brings the city’s history to life every day.
By Jane Sandilands
They are in their hundreds, women forming a not-so-orderly queue, waiting to get into Lyon’s annual Silk Markets: le Marché des Soies. It is the first afternoon of the four-day Market, held in late November, and the security guards are counting as each woman goes through the door, stopping them when crush level is reached. There is the occasional monsieur, but at this silk party, the guests are mainly women.
And they are not here for frocks but for the fabric, in the piece, by the metre, by the bolt, by the square: any way at all. Then the threads with which to sew them, the buttons, the ribbons and braids for decoration. Over forty silk manufacturers are here but it is a true market: customers jostling, picking up one bolt or piece, putting it down, only to regret the action when someone else picks it up. Sensibly, no money changes hands at the stalls. Instead, once the fabric is acquired, it goes into a bag with a description, exchanged for a piece of paper and a price. This is taken to one of the four cash registers at the entrance, paid for, the paper stamped with red ink and the successful customer braves the tide of people again to secure the silk.
It was no accident that Lyon was chosen to be France’s home of silk. In 1536, Francois 1 invited Italian silk weavers to Lyon to teach the Lyonnais their skills. They gave Lyon city not only its silk legacy, but also the colours that pervade the old city of Vieux Lyon: the ochres, pinks and terracotta. This was also the time when the traboules (covered passageways) came into being, linking the streets so the silk could be transported without exposure to the weather. Three hundred traboules traversed the city and today, many form the entrances to a web of apartments. Because the traboules are regarded as so important to the city’s silk history, the City of Lyon has an arrangement with those apartment owners to keep them unlocked during daylight hours.
At the Maison des Canuts (literally House of Silkworkers) a family tree shows the progression of silk. Because silkworms feed only on mulberry leaves, another king, the well-loved and progressive Henri IV, wanted to ensure they could eat French-bred mulberry leaves, making the industry fully integrated. In a happy coincidence of timing, the agronomist Olivier de Serres established the first mulberry trees in the South of France in 1599.
By 1660 there were more than 3000 silk weavers in Lyon and in 1667, under Louis XIV, finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert regulated the industry for commerce and gave Lyon the sole privilege to weave silk. It was a monopoly the city has treasured ever since. Silk was declared a royal fabric, so in court circles, one simply could not be seen wearing anything else.
Before the 1789 Revolution, which lasted for almost ten years, silk was in high demand: the favourite of court and clergy, it enjoyed enormous patronage and its quality and design were highly developed. After the Revolution it was a different story. The aristocrats were either gone or very quiet and the clergy also took a low profile. In those few years, from 1798 to 1804, silk languished.
In the early 19 th century, two events combined to return silk to its rightful place in the French firmament. One was Napoleon. Even before he became Emperor, he was a supporter and defender of the Lyonnais. He liked the city and at one stage, tiring of Paris, thought of moving to Lyon and re-naming it (modestly) Napoleonville. Napoleon gave astonishingly large orders for silk fabric to furnish various palaces. The Musée des Tissus, Lyon’s museum celebrating silk, records “the great order for Versailles in 1811: 58,326 yards of plain fabric, 27,250 of figured silk”. He also ordered that the French ladies of court wore only silk, another boost to production.
The second momentous event to secure the fortunes of silk was the Jacquard loom, developed by Joseph Jacquard in 1801 and based on earlier inventions. Although initially opposed by silk workers, who feared the loss of the handweaving trade, the Jacquard loom opened silk weaving to a whole new market. Today, hand weaving still exists, and the guide at the Maison des Canuts estimates its cost at €2000 (about $AUD3320) a metre, with 30 centimetres being woven in a day.
During the mid-19 th century, the Canuts wove silk for other European courts, including those of
Catherine of Russia and the English court.
With the advent of fibres such as nylon and polyester after World War II, the knowledge of silk manufacturers was adapted to these new materials. While the traditional silk industry for fabrics and clothing is alive and well, innovative applications using its methods are evident in areas literally as modern as tomorrow. So the textile threads used in the nose of the Concorde, in Formula One racing cars, in the aeronautic industry, in space shuttles, all are woven in the area of the Rhône-
Alpes with Lyon at its centre.
Today, throughout Lyon, silk is a constant presence: at the commercial Soierie, where downstairs one can see silk being printed and buy the result upstairs: a tie perhaps, or a scarf, designed in Paris. The rue Auguste Comte could well be re-named rue de Soie: a visit to two or three of these small boutiques could furnish a drawing room, dress one for a ball, or have a small souvenir in a silk scarf of a colour so subtle it defies description.
And at the Maison des Canuts, where 30,000 visitors come each year (and 20,000 take the tour), reflecting Lyon’s pride in its industry, Emilie, our tour guide, says “But of course people come here. It is part of our patrimony.”
©Jane Sandilands