Just as linen was associated with Egypt, silk, produced by worms feeding on mulberry trees, became a lucrative Chinese export. In ancient Egypt, for example, flax was harvested, beaten, and combed in a laborious process to produce fiber woven into linen, a fabric that became essential for trade, clothing, and mummification. In each of the chapters the author presents an engaging narrative about plant- and animal-based textiles with particular significance to place and historical period. Clair ( The Secret Lives of Color, 2017) focuses her spirited, illuminating cultural history on essential fibers that have been spun, knitted, and woven throughout time, from traces of thread discovered in Neolithic caves to the multilayered “one-person spaceships” worn by American astronauts. Fabrics tell a story of human development from the prehistoric world to the space age.
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