DBD World — silk

Unspun but not unsung: bottom, raw (tussah) silk top.  Above, silk blended with yak. Right:  Thrust.  I spun these two silk fibers to create prototype drawstrings for the protective bags that DBD pieces come inside.

I got to know silk when I learned how to spin it.

And I learned how to spin very soon after I learned how to knit because I had figured out that if I really wanted to have control over my own projects, I couldn't depend 100% on someone else's yarn. (Even though commercial and artisanal yarn are very, very nice.)

As soon as I began to take lessons, I found out what every spinner already knows: hands, not yarn, are really what spinning is all about. Hands are smart and they get to know the quality any textile fiber or variation much better than your mind ever will or could.  And while yarn is beautiful, and knitted garments even more so, it is the feeling of fiber in the hands, and the rhythm of the wheel that keeps spinners hoped.

Not soon after I went for the silk.

Silk is known as a more challenging spinning fiber. It's fast and it's slippery. It can cut your hands. While wool and many goat fibers are elastic, lofty, buttery, and forgiving  (you can break off many like cotton candy and then just pick them up and spin another poof on, so if your fiber gets away from you you can almost always get it back) silk is not quite as obliging. Getting it going can be more like lighting a match in the wind. And as unseen top or roving goes, it's fairly pricey.

But it's strong as all get out. Spinners are forever breaking a length of plied or single yarn from our bobbins because we need a little piece.  Forget the scissors.  They're such bad form!  (Kind of like using an umbrella in Portland.)

But even a fine single of well-spun silk will hurt your hand for a while before you finally give up on that breaking-it-off idea and discreetly capitulate to your scissor.

Silk is light, light, light.  And it's warm, warm, warm. In the summer. it's cool, cool, cool. It also plays well with others.  Add a little silk yarn to a cuff, or card a little top into a wool or mohair, or even ply one silk single with one  wool single and you likely have magic.   Given its light weight, that strength, the luster it can subtly provide, it's an ally you don't really want to go without.

Not to mention the way it subtly but distinctly reflects light and in so doing can also pick up and blend in the colors surrounding it. That's because it's fiber structure is triangular and prismatic, so it picks up colors from its environment.

And as it happened, I loved to spin it.  

"Strong, small hands," my teacher remarked.

Spinning silk feels like just moving energy.  It doesn't have much drag or puff.  It just moves.

And that's what it does in fine woven silks like the ones we use for DBD pieces, too. 

Our pieces are made in silk georgette, 12 mm crêpe de chine, silk twill, and silk charmeuse.

We choose silks according to the season and also match them to the image to render the finest product we can create.  Some pieces look best magical and filmy and sparkly in silk georgette.  Others are also spectacular afforded the depth and the different very slight surface textures and sheens offered by crêpe de chine or silk twill.  Occasionally, only the drape, creamy shine, and tonal range of silk charmeuse will do.

Which one will you choose?

That's up to you.

Travel well, you two.

Once upon a time a long, long time ago when I was getting married (and just for clarity's sake I’m not any more, and that’s ok) I rebelled over the veil thing.  In those days I had a hip and cynical angel sitting on one shoulder and a total romantic on the other. And since I came in this sort of inevitable fairy tale physical package that went really well with the romantic putti, I occasionally mind-boggled the odd new acquaintance who happened to be around while my hip and cynical angel and I were holding forth.

What's a bride to do? I handled this spicy juxtaposition by choosing this great dressmaker in the West Village who made me something really simple and elegant but also floaty in ecru silk chiffon.

Meanwhile back at the ranch I continued to kvetch to my mother about the whole veil thing.  Because I still firmly believed, and this belief was based on empirical evidence mind you, that if you didn't watch out a wedding dress gave you just enough silk chiffon to hang yourself.

“Oh no no no, “ she said.  “You want a veil. Every woman ought to wear a veil at least once. They are incredibly flattering.  They are soft and reflect light all over.  When else are you going to get the chance?”

As you might imagine, this little insight overrode any objection that still simmered inside of me in that beautiful and cynical era.

And of course she was right.

I believe I still have that veil somewhere. Unless someone stole it out of my storage closet. And when it comes to veils, anything is possible. They are hot and sacred items.

You know where I’m going with this. Right?

A monochrome silk scarf or wrap with a lot of white or light in it is for all intents and purposes the everyday equivalent of a veil. You don’t have to get married to wield this particular magic. It follows that the DBD Monochrome Collection is also a fleet of "stealth-veils".

The structure of silk fiber is triangular (prismatic).  Practically, that means it blends with other colors and lights around it while retaining its own characteristics. Those colors and lights include whatever else you are wearing and also your face and the rest of you.

None of our are pure optical white in nature (which can be slightly harsh on some skin tones). Right now, as I write, I am looking at a long remnant of silk crepe de chine draped over the back of a rocking chair, and it is slightly ecru (warm) and also has subtly warmer and cooler bits depending on how the sun is hitting it indirectly right now through a tall leaded glass window at midday.

 Nearby, Thrust in silk twill is a very slightly cool white at the border with both slightly cool and warm grays from pale to deep charcoal in the image itself.  And the diagonal weave of the twill gives its shine an additional, subtle light that make the palest grays seem to glow from within.

Anywhere near your face these pieces flatter.  And because they are printed individually, color can and occasionally does occasionally very slightly. These very slight variations are a beautiful facet of the artisanal/digital printing process.  We capitalize on this phenomenon (which is just a result of fine arts photography and the different weather and lighting conditions at the moment each image was captured) to give you options if you want them.

Andesite monochrome is a fairly neutral monochrome including an occasional subtle warm or cool tone  (think very very subtle sepia, or a shadow at twilight, respectively).

Indigo monochrome tilts slightly towards the blue, in range going from a very, very deep charcoal indigo on one end of the continuum to a pale periwinkle gray on the other. 

Nettle leaf monochrome (check) has a slight, warm greenish cast, as if the black and white print had been born in a field of herbs.

Again, these subtle monochrome color variations are distilled and enhanced from the original photographic image itself as it prints, depending on the subject and the time and day on which they were captured. They were not pre-determined and then manufactured.

That's fun, but what it means for you is that you can, if you would like to, choose a piece based on your skin tone.

I am fair to light with both pink and yellow tones in my skin, very light eyes, and hair that is currently medium brown with silver, platinum and copper highlights.  (Yes, really.)  

I can and do wear all three current variations gladly.

But a silk-loving customer who is fair, chocolate-haired and brown-eyed loves the indigo monochrome.  In fact, it was developed at her request from a sample that came back a little blue.

Meanwhile, a fair blue-eyed blonde who tans golden loves Asterism in filmy, chalky, matte silk georgette in the Andesite version with all its variations of ecru and gray.

Our models have very different skin tones.  So check out their images too.