Ethical silk textile art

MAQU + CONSTANZA KRAMER

This is a collaboration between the fashion designer Marisa Fuentes Prado from Peru and the Chilean-born textile designer Constanza Kramer.

Her fascination for traditional, handmade textiles has led her to travel the world. She immerses herself in old techniques, which she translates into a modern textile language in Germany.

In 2018, she focused on Japanese textile art, handicrafts and culture. In Tokyo, Kyoto and Okazaki, she gained deep insights into traditional printing and natural dyeing techniques such as Katazome or Edo Sarasa or Japanese natural dyes.

The result of this project: eight exclusive one-off pieces made from 100% non-violently sourced silk and organic cotton, handmade in the Maqu Store & Studio, which were presented in Berlin in summer 2018.

Ethical, non-violent silk or peace silk is obtained from the cocoon of silkworms in the same way as conventional silk, but in this case the caterpillars are not killed but are allowed to develop and live as butterflies called silkworm moths.

To build the cocoon, the caterpillars themselves produce a substance that hardens in the air as it emerges and is wrapped around itself by the animals. This up to 900m long continuous fiber is unique in nature.

The animal grows into a moth in the silk thread cocoon and then dissolves or breaks it open. A hole is cut in the cocoon to obtain the silk, which the moth then uses to hatch.

This and above all the re-linking of the thread are very time-consuming, which makes the material more expensive than the conventional version, which in our view is ethically unacceptable.

PhotoS: Emmi Lonka Model: Renata Oliveira