For over a thousand years, Chiara Vigo’s family has been keeping up a rare tradition – spinning silk from the sea. The sea silk, or bysuss, is spun on the Sardinian coast using a rare kind of clam and a complicated method, and it’s believed that Chiara is now the last person on Earth still practicing the ancient art.
When you encounter silk, the chances are it has been made from the cocoons spun by silkworms. The vast majority of the world’s silk is produced in this manner, but on the coast of the Italian island of Sardinia, there is another kind: byssus.
“The byssus is the soul of the sea,” Chiara Vigo explained. “It is sacred…Weaving the sea silk is what my family has been doing for centuries. The most important thread, for my family, was the thread of their history, their tradition.”
This remarkable product, golden in color, has been spun for thousands of years, with Chiara now the last of the master weavers. It involves an intricate process and the solidified saliva from a large clam known as Pinna Nobilis. The saliva is collected early in the morning, to avoid attracting too much attention. As it is a protected species of clam, Chiara is accompanied by members of the Italian coastguard, and it takes hundreds of dives to gather just 200g (around 7oz) of material.
The severely limited quantity of the product is not the only reason Chiara doesn’t want to mass-produce it.
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“It would be like commercializing the flight of an eagle,” Vigo says. Instead, she now gives the fabric to people who come to her for help. This can vary from recently married couples to new parents to women trying to conceive, as byssus is believed to bring good fortune and fertility.
“Before it was emperors [who wore byssus], now it is young women and newlywed couples,” Vigo says. “I weave for outcasts, the poor, people in need.”
If you liked this Great Big Story, we think you might also like to learn about Xiangyunsha, a special Chinese silk that is not only incredibly soft but also eco-friendly and antibacterial.
