Cruelty-free silk - this is our passion

Did you know that conventional production of silk requires the killing of silkworms?

Roughly 3000 silkworms are killed to make a single pound of silk. While awaiting their beautiful metamorphosis, the worms are boiled alive. Silkworms may look different from humans and age differently than we do, but they have central nervous systems and brains, just like us. Most importantly, they’re living beings, and they want to stay that way.

In the conventional production of silk, mostly bred mulberry caterpillars are used. The approximately 2mm large larvae feed on mulberry leaves until they have reached the size of a middle finger, then pupate to grow into a butterfly. In doing so, they spin an approx. 3000m long silk thread around themselves. If the metamorphosis were completed and the caterpillar hatched out of the cocoon as a butterfly, the cocoon would be damaged by the hatch and the long thread torn. The silk threads are still suitable for processing, but much shorter. The shortened threads must therefore be spun into longer silk threads by machine or by hand before they can then be woven into fabric.

For the majority of silk manufacturers, this process is simply too labor-intensive and therefore too expensive. In order to avoid damaging the cocoon by the hatching butterfly, the not yet fully developed animals are steamed with hot water or thrown into boiling water together with their cocoons. Both methods result in the death of the caterpillars. The threads of the cocoon remain undamaged and can be unwound in one piece. The technical term for this is reel; the resulting silk is accordingly called reel silk. This process is quick and inexpensive for the manufacturer. With this method, however, around 50,000 caterpillars die for approx. 120kg of raw silk (Fachwissen Clothing, Verlag Europa-Lehrmittel 2007, p.21) This process also requires fewer workers, which is advantageous for the producers but clearly disadvantageous for the people in India who make a living from silk production. Many of them have lost their jobs over the years due to this manufacturing method.

The Indian engineer Kusuma Rajaiah cared about the welfare of animals and humans, he wanted to put an end to this method and after years of research he developed a manufacturing process that was both ethically and economically justifiable. The concept of Ahimsa silk was born.

Ahimsa silk / Peace Silk makes the difference

The word Ahimsa comes from Sanskrit and literally means "not to hurt". This means the concept of non-violence in any form: in thoughts, words and deeds. Hence the name Ahimsa silk, in English the term Peace Silk is also used.

The manufacturing process is based on that same principle. The silk is obtained without killing animals, no chemicals are used. This method not only sets new standards from an ethical and ecological point of view, but also creates jobs. Many people in rural areas of India now live from the extraction of Ahimsa silk.

Even the caterpillars are reared without the use of chemicals. The mulberry trees are not treated with insecticides or fungicides. The leaves and caterpillars are instead protected by nets that cover the whole tree like mosquito nets. As soon as the caterpillars have pupated in their cocoons, the cocoons are collected and stored in a protected place until the butterflies have developed. Then one of two methods is used:

    The cocoons are cut open at the right time, the butterflies can hatch.
    You wait until the butterflies hatch on their own.

These methods take time, usually two to four weeks. Both methods guarantee the survival of the animals, which in turn ensures further breeding, because the animals mate and lay new eggs from which the next silk moth larvae develop, which pupate and create silk cocoons. However, the cocoons are damaged both when they are cut open and when they hatch, which results in the above-mentioned follow-up work such as machine or manual spinning into longer silk threads. This additional effort and the time that arise in the non-violent extraction of the material explain the price of the original Ahimsa silk.