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Info: Biography, Pictures, Discography of all CDs & DVDs |
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| France traveling to Japan for his town's supply of silkworms after a disease wipes out their African supply.Plot Synopsis:
This plot synopsis is empty.Thank you, your vote will be counted and appear on this page within 24 hours.Can we really watch a movie lasting almost two hours just for its
stunning cinematography and some glimpse of storytelling, or should it
rather be the other way around?Personally, I just got terribly
bored less than halfway through the movie.Yes, it is visually
compelling.And yes, there are some fine moments in the acting,
especially from Alfred Molina.Was the above comment useful to you?Was this set in France or did I imagine those scenes?This director can't read or what?!!!Where is the soundtrack for this movie?You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers.Terms and Privacy Policy under which this service is provided to you.People have expressed a wish to donate a little money.Similar to crepe de chine but heavier.Charmeuse is a satin weave silk with a crepe back sometimes called crepe backed satin.Chiffon is transparent soft and light
silk.China silk is a plain weave silk of
various weights.Doupioni is reeled from double cocoons
nested together.The threads are uneven and irregular.Italian Doupioni is the finest,
followed by Chinese Doupioni and Indian Doupioni.Faille soft ribbed silk with wider ribs
than seen in grosgrain ribbon.Georgette sheer crepe silk, heavier than
chiffon and with a crinkle surface.Matelasse has raised woven designs,
usually jacquard, with the appearance of puckered or quilted.SILK, the fabric that makes its own
statement.For centuries silk has had a reputation as a luxurious
and sensuous fabric, one associated with wealth and success.Silk is one of the oldest
textile fibers known to man.It has been used by the Chinese since the 27th century BC.Silk is mentioned by Aristotle and became a valuable commodity both in Greece and Rome.During the Roman Empire, silk was sold for its weight in gold.Today, silk is yet another word for elegance, and silk
garments are prized for their versatility, wearability and comfort.Silk, or soie in
French, is the strongest natural fiber.Silk absorbs moisture, which makes it cool in the summer
and warm in the winter.Silk retains its shape, drapes well, caresses the figure, and shimmers with a
luster all its own.Contemporary silk garments range from evening wear to
sports wear.Silk garments can be worn for all
seasons.All silk is washable.Silk is a natural protein fiber, like human hair,
taken from the cocoon of the silkworm.Most silk fabrics can be hand washed.Technically, silk does not shrink like other
fibers.If the fabric is not tightly woven, washing a silk with tighten up the
weave....Silk garments, however, can shrink if the fabric has not been washed
prior to garment construction.When washing silk, do not wring but roll in a towel.Silk may yellow and fade with the use of a high iron
setting.Silk is also weakened by sunlight
and perspiration.Peau de Soie is a stout, soft silk with
fine cross ribs.Pongee is a plain woven, thin, naturally
tan fabric that has a rough weave effect.Silk Shantung is a dupionni type of silk
that comes from the Shantung Prov.Silk Broadcloth is a plain weave silk in
various weights; crisper than china silk.Silk linen has a nubby yarn
in a plain weave.Weights range from light to heavy.The look of linen with the characteristics
of linen.Silk satin is a satin
weave with a plain back.Wild silkworms feed
on leaves other than mulberry leaves.Tussah silk is similar to shantung, with silk from
the wild.Silk is also available in other weaves such as velvet and
corduroy.Sericulture or silk production has a long and colorful history unknown to most people.For centuries the West knew very little about silk and the people who made it.For more than two thousand years the Chinese kept the secret of silk altogether to themselves.She is credited with the introduction of silkworm rearing and the invention of the loom.Half a silkworm cocoon unearthed in 1927 from the loess soil astride the Yellow River in Shanxi Province, in northern China, has been dated between 2600 and 2300 BC.Another example is a group of ribbons, threads and woven fragments, dated about 3000 BC, and found at Qianshanyang in Zhejiang province.There are many indigenous varieties of wild silk moths found in a number of different countries.The key to understanding the great mystery and magic of silk, and China's domination of its production and promotion, lies with one species: the blind, flightless moth, Bombyx mori.From one ounce of eggs come about 30,000 worms which eat a ton of mulberry leaves and produce twelve pounds of raw silk.The original wild ancestor of this cultivated species is believed to be Bombyx mandarina Moore, a silk moth living on the white mulberry tree and unique to China.The silkworm of this particular moth produces a thread whose filament is smoother, finer and rounder than that of other silk moths.Over thousands of years, during which the Chinese practiced sericulture utilizing all the different types of silk moths known to them, Bombyx mori evolved into the specialized silk producer it is today; a moth which has lost its power to fly, only capable of mating and producing eggs for the next generation of silk producers.Producing silk is a lengthy process and demands constant close attention.Chinese developed secret ways for both.Also a fixed temperature has to be maintained throughout.Thousands of feeding worms are kept on trays that are stacked one on top of another.The silkworms feed until they have stored up enough energy to enter the cocoon stage.While they are growing they have to be protected from loud noises, drafts, strong smells such as those of fish and meat and even the odor of sweat.Silkworms spend three or four days spinning a cocoon around themselves until they look like puffy, white balls.After eight or nine days in a warm, dry place the cocoons are ready to be unwound.These filaments are unwound onto a spool.Each cocoon is made up of a filament between 600 and 900 meters long!Finally the silk threads are woven into cloth or used for embroidery work.Clothes made from silk are not only beautiful and lightweight, they are also warm in cool weather and cool in hot weather.Reeling silk and spinning were always considered household duties for women, while weaving and embroidery were carried out in workshops as well as the home.By the fifth century BC, at least six Chinese provinces were producing silk.The technique and process of sericulture were guarded secrets and closely controlled by Chinese authorities.Anyone who revealed the secrets or smuggled the silkworm eggs or cocoons outside of China would be punished by death.When silk was first discovered, it was reserved exclusively for the use of the ruler.Within the palace, the emperor is believed to have worn a robe of white silk; outside, he, his principal wife, and the heir to the throne wore yellow, the color of the earth.Gradually the various classes of society began wearing tunics of silk, and silk came into more general use.As well as being used for clothing and decoration, silk was quite quickly put to industrial use by the Chinese.Silk, indeed, rapidly became one of the principal elements of the Chinese economy.Eventually even the common people were able to wear garments of silk.During the Han Dynasty, silk ceased to be a mere industrial material and became an absolute value in itself.Farmers paid their taxes in grain and silk.Silk began to be used for paying civil servants and rewarding subjects for outstanding services.Values were calculated in lengths of silk as they had been calculated in pounds of gold.Before long it was to become a currency used in trade with foreign countries.This use of silk continued during the Tang as well.It is possible that this added importance was the result of a major increase in production.It found its way so thoroughly into the Chinese language that 230 of the 5,000 most common characters of the mandarin "alphabet" have silk as their "key".In spite of their secrecy, however, the Chinese were destined to lose their monopoly on silk production.Sericulture reached Korea around 200 BC, when waves of Chinese immigrants arrived there.Silk reached the West through a number of different channels.Shortly after AD 300, sericulture traveled westward and the cultivation of the silkworm was established in India.The princess smuggled out silkworm eggs by hiding them in her voluminous hairpiece.West, for Khotan kept the secret too.Why share it with the westerners and kill a good market?Then around AD 550, two Nestorian monks appeared at the Byzantine Emperor Justinian's court with silkworm eggs hid in their hollow bamboo staves.Byzantium was in the silk business at last.The Byzantine church and state created imperial workshops, monopolizing production and keeping the secret to themselves.China especially for the Middle Eastern market, continued to bring high prices in the West, and trade along the Silk Road therefore continued as before.By the sixth century the Persians, too, had mastered the art of silk weaving, developing their own rich patterns and techniques.Italy began silk production with the introduction of 2000 skilled silk weavers from Constantinople.Eventually silk production became widespread in Europe.Silk became a precious commodity highly sought by other countries at a very early time, and it is believed that the silk trade was actually started before the Silk Road was officially opened in the second century BC.An Egyptian female mummy with silk has been discovered in the village of Deir el Medina near Thebes and the Valley of the Kings, dated 1070 BC, which is probably the earliest evidence of the silk trade.During the second century BC, the Chinese emperor, Han Wu Di's ambassadors traveled as far west as Persia and Mesopotamia, bearing gifts including silks.Han embassy reached Baghdad in AD 97, and important finds of Han silks have been made along the Silk Road.One of the most dramatic finds of Tang silks along the Silk Road was made in 1907 by Aurel Stein.From about the fourth century BC, the Greeks and Romans began talking of Seres, the Kingdom of Silk.Some historians believe the first Romans to set eyes upon the fabulous fabric were the legions of Marcus Licinius Crassus, Governor of Syria.At the fateful battle of Carrhae near the Euphrates River in 53 BC, the soldiers were so startled by the bright silken banners of the Parthian troops that they fled in panic.Within decades Chinese silks became widely worn by the rich and noble families of Rome.By 380 AD, Marcellinus Ammianus reported, "The use of silk which was once confined to the nobility has now spread to all classes without distinction, even to the lowest."The craving of silk continued to increase over the centuries.The price of silk was very hight
in Rome.The best Chinese bark ( a particular kind of silk) cost as much as 300 denarii (a Roman soldier's salary for
an entire year!Many sources quote that Roman citizens' demand for imported silks was so great as to be damaging to the Roman economy.Silk was even beginning to have a civilizing effect on the barbarians.In 408 AD when Alaric, a Goth, besieged Rome, his price for sparing the city included 5000 pounds of gold, 3000 pounds of pepper, 30,000 pounds of silver and 4000 tunics of silk.During the late 1970's China, the country that first developed sericulture thousands years ago dramatically increased its silk production and has again become the world's leading producer of silk.The Roman sumptuary law to prohibite the use of silk garments to men ( tac.Silkroad Foundation Home Page
P.WARNING: FOR ADULTS ONLY: SILKEXOTIC.Persons under eighteen (18) years of age, and persons who may be offended by such depictions are not authorized by SILKEXOTIC.COM and are forbidden to directly or indirectly access, download, acquire, view, read and listen to at, in, or through SILKEXOTIC.Click here for Terms and Conditions.If you proceed and follow a link on this site, you assume full responsibility for your actions.Silk currently does not work on Mac OS X 10.Silk enables the Quartz text rendering and smoothing introduced in Mac OS X 10.This means antialiased text in Netscape, Mozilla, and many others.Why wait for developers to update their Carbon applications when you can get the silky smooth text everywhere, right now?Substitutes fonts in the applications.Changes the default theme font to any other font.Exclude list feature allows you to exclude certain applications so they work as before, if the antialiased text there looks bad.Convenient drop button in the Silk preference pane to quickly detect if a particular application is Carbon or not.Note: The freeware edition is not compatible with Mac OS X 10.This is a regular Internet Explorer window, with Silk disabled.Know how to improve Silk?Fixes the minimum font size settings in applications that use WebKit.No longer have to relaunch System Preferences after entering your registration information in order to see it.Greatly reduces the dependence on font families.Silk no longer substitutes fonts based on the stored Font Family ID.If the specified theme font is no longer available, Silk no longer replaces the theme font with Geneva (or some other random font).Removed a spurious message that appeared in the console log if the fallback font did not have a font family.Added an option to disable antialiasing for fonts.The font panel in the preference pane now only shows the font names and no longer shows any effects or sizes that aren't valid for Silk.No longer need to setup a substitution rule to get the location field in Safari to respect the theme font.Fixed a problem that prevented newly installed fonts from appearing in the Silk preference pane.Silk now completely rescans fonts when the Mac OS X font cache is updated.This also means it may rescan the first time you open the Silk preference pane on each login.Library, all users will get the new SN automatically.TinkerTool is no longer necessary to get Silk to completely change the theme font in Cocoa applications.No longer overrides ATSUI or MLTE attributes if the size of the attribute value is not 4 bytes.Unsanity LLC is a privately held company based in the USA.Jezebel Magazine
Recipient of The Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence!Located in Midtown Atlanta, Silk features sizzling Kobe steaks,and fresh seafood flown in from all over the world such as our succulent Chilean Sea Bass.Reserve Now on OpenTable.Prior releases of SiLK and the old
Sourceforge SiLK web site are still available. |
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