A Note on Muslin

For centuries, the muslin of Dhaka was the most coveted textile on earth. The Mughals called it woven air. Colonial accounts describe a saree that could pass through a wedding ring.

The fiber came from a single cotton cultivar, grown along the banks of the Meghna. When the British East India Company found they could not industrialize its production, the industry was deliberately starved. The cultivar went extinct; the knowledge went quiet.

Recovery, one thread at a time

A small group of weavers and agricultural researchers have spent a decade bringing the cultivar back. The muslin we use is not yet the muslin of the Mughals — but it is closer than anything that has existed in two hundred years.