Silk Bedding Direct Silk Brocade

Silk Bedding Direct provide luxury duvets, pillows and mattress toppers with a 100% natural mulberry silk interior. We also supply mulberry silk duvets for children too. Click one of the buttons below to find out more about our speciality hand-finished mulberry silk-filled duvets........

SILK BROCADE

Silk brocade is a heavy, very luxurious and beautiful fabric, richly woven with coloured threads, often with gold or silver threads added. Silk is made into many different types of fabric, but brocade is at the pinnacle of all of them. The patterns woven into brocade which was to be used for clothing were usually of flower designs. Pieces of silk brocade have been found in China dating from the first century BC.

Silk brocade often gives the effect of being embroidered with a raised design and this effect is caused by the addition of an extra weft thread. Its English language name is derived from the Italian `broccato`, meaning `embossed cloth` and both words share the same root from the word `broccoli`.

Initially silk brocade was worn only by the rich and important. Until Byzantine times silk was known only to the Chinese, but even when the knowledge of silk production spread to the west, silk brocade was so expensive that only the rich could afford it. Besides being used for clothing, silk brocade was also used for traditional Chinese paintings and rich wall hangings, and outside China with pictures of Christian, Persian or Indian stories woven into the fabric and sometimes decorated with precious stones.

During the Middle Ages sumptuous gowns of silk brocade would be worn only by wealthy noblewomen, their men folk wearing silk damask waistcoats.

By the time of the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century, Italy had greatly improved on the technique of spinning silk damask. It is thought that there had been great improvements to the spinning machines used. So much so that, at this time, Italy became the leading manufacturer of silk damask in Europe, producing fabrics of great beauty and complexity.

By the 18th century, silk damask was more widely used, with upper and middle class women now being able to afford this luxury as a regular part of their wardrobe for both dresses and shoes. However, by the 19th century silk brocade had gone out of fashion and much less was worn.

In modern times silk brocade is still an expensive fabric, used for wedding dresses and ball gowns. It is also often used for high class curtains and draperies.

At Silk Bedding Direct we use only the very best silk to produce our extremely comfortable and hypoallergenic duvets. Find out more about our top quality mulberry silk-filled duvets below.....