Почему лотосовый шёлк стоит так дорого

Lotus silk is one of the rarest fabrics in the world, produced on a very limited scale in Cambodia, Myanmar, and, more recently, Vietnam. Only a handful of artisans possess the necessary skills to harvest this naturally occurring material. But the process of producing this silk is far from simple. Extracting enough lotus silk to make a single scarf can take several months of labor. And the final product can cost 10 times more than regular silk. So how is this fabric made, and what makes it so expensive? * Original video is here: Business Insider    • Why Lotus Silk Is So Expensive | So Expens...   * The Phan Thi Thuan family has been making silk for generations. They breed their own silkworms and harvest the threads to create luxurious garments. But producing lotus silk is a different process. Silkworms are typically the source of silk. They are kept on wide, large trays and must be fed almost 24 hours a day—their diet consists of mulberry leaves. The caterpillars delicately and carefully spin thread to create their cocoons, and just one kilogram of silk can require the efforts of hundreds of these caterpillars. But despite the meticulous care these insects require, they also perform the bulk and most difficult part of the work. The main difference between bright yellow silk and its paler lotus variety is that each strand of lotus silk can only be obtained by hand. Phan Thi Tuan explains: "Lotus silk is different from ordinary silk. We have to obtain lotus thread from the stem of the plant. Silk thread is stiffer than lotus thread. Silkworm caterpillars use their adhesive gland to extract the silk thread from their intestines. Lotus thread is soft and slightly elastic. Silk thread has a lustrous appearance and looks luxurious. Lotus thread is noble." Each strand of lotus silk begins with the stem of a lotus flower. The lotus is the national flower of Vietnam, and is grown throughout the country. Although lotus silk has been produced in Myanmar for years, Phan Thi Tuan only began experimenting with the material in 2017: "Here in Vietnam, people—the whole country, in fact—love the lotus flower. We have many lotus fields. But they only collect the flowers themselves, as well as the seeds. The stems are simply discarded as trash. When I was offered the opportunity to try making lotus silk, I decided it would benefit farmers and other people. I thought: I have both the skill for this kind of work and the determination to do it." Once a flower stem has been selected as suitable for production and removed—this is done by hand—the silk inside can now be extracted. Each stem contains a tiny amount of thin, sticky fibers that must be rolled together and dried. The threads must be processed for 24 hours while still damp—otherwise, they will break. Therefore, harvesting must be done daily. And the lotus harvesting season is only between April and October. After all the difficult work of extracting the threads from the stems, these threads are still very delicate and fragile. "At first, I didn't intend to engage in lotus silk production because lotus thread is very brittle and fragile, and such work requires a lot of effort. The silk thread produced by caterpillars is stronger than lotus silk, so a loom can work with it. Lotus silk thread is less durable, so it requires handwork. The most time-consuming part of the work is extracting the lotus thread. Once you have the thread for the loom, everything else is simpler, but obtaining this thread requires so many upstream processing steps. A highly skilled worker can extract threads from only 200-250 lotus stems per day, and a shawl 36 centimeters wide and 1.75 meters long requires approximately 9,200 stems. It takes a worker two months to make one shawl. Once the threads are dried, they are folded and carefully wound onto a spindle by hand, after which they are woven into a loom. These fibers are fragile on their own, but when woven into a single material, they can be as strong as traditional silk. Fang has a team of twenty workers working daily to create these threads, allowing them to produce ten to twenty shawls monthly. But when a 25-centimeter scarf can sell for just over $200, the results are worth the effort. The final product is unlike any other material. It's as soft as silk, breathable like linen, and slightly stretchy. These elite qualities have made it a coveted purchase for tourists seeking rare souvenirs. It has also recently begun to be noticed and acquired by international companies.