PORTUGUESE SILK

The Silk That Survived Empires 

Throughout history, silk was always an exotic material, reserved only for great historical figures and prominent women.
Cleopatra wrapped herself in sea silk to seduce empires, Casanova wore it to flamboyantly charm his way through locked doors, Wallis Simpson wore silk to topple a throne and claim a king.

"For her own person, it beggar'd all description: she did lie in her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue, o'erpicturing that Venus where we see the fancy outwork nature."

— William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

Silk is a part of history, a thread that connects to every dangerous figure who understood that beauty and allure are forms of power.

The Miracle

It is a miracle that Portuguese silk is still produced at all.

In 1703, Portugal signed the Methuen Treaty, the Treaty of Cloths and Wines, and agreed to stop producing textiles and import English cloth in exchange for exporting Port wine.

But the 800-year-old craft of Portuguese silk refused to die. Today, only two ateliers remain.
Castelo Branco is one of them, producing silk on a farm where they grow their own mulberry trees, feeding the silkworms, spinning the thread, dyeing it by hand with natural pigments.

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