达卡平纹细布：没人知道如何织造的古老布料

【来源龙腾网】

正文原创翻译：

Nearly 200 years ago, Dhaka muslin was the most valuable fabric on the planet. Then it was lost altogether. How did this happen? And can we bring it back?

大约200年前，达卡平纹细布是世界上最珍贵的布料。后来彻底消失了，为什么会这样？我们能够复原这种布料吗？

In late 18th-Century Europe, a new fashion led to an international scandal. In fact, an entire social class was accused of appearing in public naked.

在18世纪末的欧洲，一种新服饰引发了国际丑闻。事实上，整个社会阶层被指责裸体在公众场合露面。

The culprit was Dhaka muslin, a precious fabric imported from the city of the same name in what is now Bangladesh, then in Bengal. It was not like the muslin of today. Made via an elaborate, 16-step process with a rare cotton that only grew along the banks of the holy Meghna river, the cloth was considered one of the great treasures of the age. It had a truly global patronage, stretching back thousands of years – deemed worthy of clothing statues of goddesses in ancient Greece, countless emperors from distant lands, and generations of local Mughal royalty.

罪魁祸首是达卡平纹细布，这种珍贵的布料进口自同名城市孟加拉，即当今的孟加拉国。它使用一种稀有棉花，通过16道工序精制而成，这种棉花只生长在神圣的梅格纳河两岸。当时人们将这种布料视为瑰宝之一，风靡全球数千年——人们认为这种布料配得上古希腊的女神像、遥远国度不计其数的帝王、本土莫卧儿王朝的皇室成员享用。

There were many different types, but the finest were honoured with evocative names conjured up by imperial poets, such as "baft-hawa", literally "woven air". These high-end muslins were said to be as light and soft as the wind. According to one traveller, they were so fluid you could pull a bolt – a length of 300ft, or 91m – through the centre of a ring. Another wrote that you could fit a piece of 60ft, or 18m, into a pocket snuff box.

这种布料分为许多种，但最上乘的布料被帝国诗人赋予动听的名字，例如：“baft-hawa”，字面意思是“空气织物”，据说这种高档布料像风一样轻薄柔软。一名旅行者这样描述：它们是如此丝滑，以至于可以拉拽一匹布——长300英尺或91米——穿过一枚戒指。另一名旅行者写道：你可以将一段长60英尺或18米的布装入一个小巧的鼻烟壶内。

Dhaka muslin was also more than a little transparent.

达卡平纹细布不只是有些透明。

While traditionally, these premium fabrics were used to make saris and jamas – tunic-like garments worn by men – in the UK they transformed the style of the aristocracy, extinguishing the highly structured dresses of the Georgian era. Five-foot horizontal waistlines that could barely fit through doorways were out, and delicate, straight-up-and-down "chemise gowns" were in. Not only were these endowed with a racy gauzy quality, they were in the style of what was previously considered underwear.

传统上，这些高档布料用于制造纱丽和类似男士短袍的衣服。但在英国，这些布料改变了贵族的穿衣风格，淘汰了乔治王时代非常有型的衣服。勉强穿过房门的五英尺宽腰身过时了，取而代之的是优雅、直上直下的“无腰身宽松长袍”。这种衣服不仅有轻薄透明、极具挑逗的特点，而且有曾经被认为是内衣的风格。

In one popular satirical print by Isaac Cruikshank, a clique of women appear together in long, brightly colored muslin dresses, though which you can clearly see their bottoms, nipples and pubic hair. Underneath reads the descxtion, "Parisian Ladies in their Winter Dress for 1800".

在艾萨克·克鲁克香克绘制的一幅受人喜爱的讽刺漫画中，一群女性身穿颜色鲜艳的平纹细布长连衣裙集体亮相，但她们的臀部、乳头、阴毛清晰可见。图片下面配有这样的描述：“1800年身穿冬装的巴黎女性”。

Meanwhile in an equally misogynistic comedic excerpt from an English women's monthly magazine, a tailor helps a female client to achieve the latest fashion. "Madame, ’tis done in a moment," he assures her, then instructs her to remove her petticoat, then her pockets, then her corset and finally her sleeves… "‘Tis an easy matter, you see," he explains. "To be dressed in the fashion, you have only to undress."

在一本英文女性月刊中，有一个同样厌恶女性的喜剧段子，一位裁缝帮助女性顾客设计最新款式。他向她保证：“女士，马上就好”，然后指示她脱掉衬裙、衣袋、胸衣、最后是衣袖…… “你看，这很简单”，他解释道。“要想穿的时尚，你就得脱光衣服”。

Still, Dhaka muslin was a hit – with those who could afford it. It was the most expensive fabric of the era, with a retinue of dedicated fans that included the French queen Marie Antoinette, the French empress Joséphine Bonaparte and Jane Austen. But as quickly as this wonder-cloth struck Enlightenment Europe, it vanished.

然而，达卡平纹细布大受欢迎——对于那些买得起的人。它是那个时代最昂贵的布料，忠实的粉丝包括法国皇后玛丽·安托尼特、法国女王约瑟芬·波拿巴、简·奥斯汀。但在启蒙运动时期的欧洲，这种神奇布料流行得快，消失得也快。

By the early 20th Century, Dhaka muslin had disappeared from every corner of the globe, with the only surviving examples stashed safely in valuable private collections and museums. The convoluted technique for making it was forgotten, and the only type of cotton that could be used, Gossypium arboreum var. neglecta – locally known as Phuti karpas – abruptly went extinct. How did this happen? And could it be reversed?

20世纪初，达卡平纹细布在世界各地消失了，唯一现存的样品被完好保存在珍贵的私人收藏和博物馆中。这种布料的复杂工艺已经失传，唯一使用的棉花是树棉的一个变种——当地称为普提卡帕斯——突然绝种了。为什么会这样？这种布料能被复原吗？

A fickle fiber

容易变形的纤维

Dhaka muslin began with plants grown along the banks of the Meghna river, one of three which form the immense Ganges Delta – the largest in the world. Every spring, their maple-like leaves pushed up through the grey, silty soil, and made their journey towards straggly adulthood. Once fully grown, they produced a single daffodil-yellow flower twice a year, which gave way to a snowy floret of cotton fibers.

达卡平纹细布源自梅格纳河岸生长的植物，它与另外两条河流构成了巨大的恒河三角洲——世界最大的三角洲。每年春季，形似枫叶的树叶从灰色的粉质土里破土而出，开始蔓生的成熟之旅。当它成熟时，每年两次开出一朵淡黄色的花，凋谢后开出雪白的棉纤维小花。

These were no ordinary fibres. Unlike the long, slender strands produced by its Central American cousin Gossypium hirsutum, which makes up 90% of the world’s cotton today, Phuti karpas produced threads that are stumpy and easily frayed. This might sound like a flaw, but it depends what you’re planning to do with them.

它们不是一般的棉纤维。不像中美洲的近亲陆地棉结出细而长的纤维（占当今世界棉花产量的90%），普提卡帕斯结出短而粗、且易受磨损的纤维。听起来像是缺点，但这取决于你想用它做什么。

Indeed, the short fibers of the vanished shrub were useless for making cheap cotton cloth using industrial machinery. They were fickle to work with, and they’d snap easily if you tried to twist them into yarn this way. Instead, the local people tamed the rogue threads with a series of ingenious techniques developed over millennia.

其实，消失的那种灌木结出的短纤维不适合用工业设备织造便宜的棉布。它们容易变形，捻成的棉纱容易断裂。然而，当地人运用几千年来发明的一系列独创工艺驾驭了这种劣种纤维。

The full process involved 16 steps, each of which was so specialist, it was carried out by a different village around Dhaka, which was then part of Bengal – some in what is now Bangladesh, some in what is now the Indian state of West Bengal. It was a true community effort, involving the young and old, men and women.

整个工艺包含16道工序，每道工序十分专业，由达卡附近的另一座村庄来完成，地点位于当时的孟加拉——该国一部分位于当今的孟加拉国，另一部分位于当今印度的西孟加拉州。这是真正的社区工作，男女老少齐上阵。

First, the balls of cotton were cleaned with the tiny, spine-like teeth on the jawbone of the boal catfish, a cannibalistic native of lakes and rivers in the region. Next came the spinning. The short cotton fibres required high levels of humidity to stretch them, so this stage was performed on boats, by skilled groups of young women in the early morning and late afternoon – the most humid times of day. Older people generally couldn’t spin the yarn, because they simply couldn’t see the threads.

首先，他们用叉尾鲇鱼颚骨上尖刺一般的牙齿清洗棉花球，这是当地河流湖泊中的一种食人鱼。接下来是纺纱，短的棉纤维需要很高的湿度才能拉伸，所以这道工序由一群技术娴熟的年轻妇女在船上完成，时间是一天当中湿度最高的清晨和傍晚。老年人一般不纺纱，只因为看不清纱线。

"You'd get tiny, tiny little joins between the cotton fibres, where they were lixed together," says Sonia Ashmore, a design historian who authored a book about muslin in 2012. "It lent the surface a kind of roughness, which gives a very nice feel."

“棉纤维之间有细微的接线头，将棉纤维连接在一起”，设计历史学家索尼娅·阿什莫尔说道，她曾在2012年写过一本关于平纹细布的书。“这使棉纤维表面增添了几分粗糙，触感很棒”。

Finally, there was the weaving. This part could take months to complete, as classic jamdani designs – mostly geometric shapes depicting flowers – were integrated directly into the cloth, using the same technique that was used to create the famous royal tapestries from medi Europe. The result was a minutely detailed artwork rendered in thousands of silvery, silky strands.

最后是织造。这道工序需要几个月来完成，典雅的坚达尼设计——多是描绘花朵的几何图形——直接与布料相结合，采用中世纪欧洲著名的皇家挂毯的相同工艺。最终的成品是一件细致入微的艺术品，由数千股银色的丝线织造而成。

An Asian wonder

亚洲的奇迹

The region’s Western customers found it hard to believe that Dhaka muslin could possibly have been made by human hands – there were rumours that it was woven by mermaids, fairies and even ghosts. Some said that it was done underwater. "The lightness of it, the softness of it – it was like nothing we have today," says Ruby Ghaznavi, vice president of the Bangladesh National Craft Council.

令该地区的西方客户难以置信的是，达卡平纹细布竟然是人类手工编织的——谣传这种布料是由美人鱼、仙女、甚至幽灵织造的。还有人说是在海底织造的。“布料的光泽和柔软度——当今似乎没有任何布料能与之媲美”，孟加拉国民族工艺委员会副主席鲁比·加兹纳维说道。

The same weaving process continues in the region to this day, using lower-quality muslin from ordinary cotton threads instead of Phuti karpas. In 2013, the traditional art of jamdani weaving was protected by Unesco as a form of intangible cultural heritage.

这种织造工艺在该地区一直传承到今天，人们使用的劣质平纹细布是由一般的棉纤维制成，而不是普提卡帕斯。2013年，传统的坚达尼纺织艺术被联合国教科文组织列为受保护的非物质文化遗产。

But the real feat was the thread counts that could be achieved.

但是，真正的壮举是纱线的密度。

Higher thread counts are seen as desirable because they make materials softer, and tend to wear better over time – the more strands there are to begin with, the more there will remain to hold the fabric together when some begin to fray.

较高的纱线密度是可取的，因为这使面料变得更加柔软和经久耐用——最初使用的纱线越多，当部分纱线开始磨损时，使布料连为一体的剩余纱线就越多。

Saiful Islam, who runs a photo agency and leads a project to resurrect the fabric, says most versions made today have thread counts between 40 and 80 – meaning they contain roughly that number of criss-crossing horizontal and vertical threads per square inch of fabric. Dhaka muslin, on the other hand, had thread counts in the range of 800-1200 – an order of magnitude above any other cotton fabric that exists today.

赛义夫·伊斯拉姆经营着一家图片社，并负责一个旨在复原这种布料的项目，他说当今多数布料的纱线密度是40-80——意为每平方英寸布料大约包含的纵横交错的纱线数量。但是，达卡平纹细布的纱线密度是800-1200——这个数量级高于现存的所有棉织物。

Though Dhaka muslin vanished more than a century ago, there are still intact saris, tunics, scarves and dresses in museums today. Occasionally one will resurface at a high-end auction house such as Christie’s and Bonhams, and sell for thousands of pounds.

虽然达卡平纹细布已消失了一个多世纪，但当今博物馆里仍有保存完好的纱丽、束腰外衣、围巾、连衣裙。偶尔会有一件在高端拍卖行重见天日，例如佳士得、宝龙，售价数千英镑。

A colonial shambles

殖民地乱象

"The trade was built up and destroyed by the British East India Company," says Ashmore.

“英国东印度公司建立而又毁灭了贸易”，阿什莫尔说道。

Long before Dhaka muslin was draped over aristocratic women in Europe, it was sold across the globe. It was popular with the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and muslin from "India" is mentioned in the book The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, authored by an anonymous Egyptian merchant around 2,000 years ago.

The Roman author Petronius may have been the first person on record to raise an eyebrow over its transparency, writing: "Thy bride might as well clothe herself with a garment of the wind as stand forth publicly naked under her clouds of muslin." Over the coming centuries, the fabric is praised in the works of the renowned 14th-Century Berber-Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta and the prolific 15th-Century Chinese voyager Ma Huan, as well as many others.

早在欧洲贵族女性身穿达卡平纹细布之前，这种布料就已销往世界各地。它深受古希腊和罗马人的喜爱，在大约两千年前，一位不知名的埃及商人写过一本书叫《厄立特里亚海航行记》，其中提到了产自“印度”的平纹细布。古罗马作家佩特罗尼乌斯可能是有史以来第一个对这种透明布料感到不满的人，他写道：“你的新娘相当于穿了一件轻薄如风的衣服，在多层薄纱的遮蔽下裸体露面”。在后来的几个世纪，这种布料在许多作品中受到称赞，例如：14世纪著名的柏柏尔-摩洛哥探险家伊本·巴图塔、15世纪创作丰富的中国航海家马欢等等。

But the Mughal era was arguably the fabric’s heyday. The South Asian empire was founded in 1526 by a warrior chieftain from what is now Uzbekistan, and by the 18th Century it ruled across the entire Indian subcontinent. During this period, muslin was traded extensively with merchants from Persia (modern-day Iran), Iraq, Turkey and the Middle East.

但是，莫卧儿帝国是这种布料的鼎盛时期。1526年，地处当今乌兹别克斯坦的一位武士首领建立了这个南亚帝国。到了18世纪，该帝国统治着整个印度次大陆。在这一时期，平纹细布被商人大量买卖，他们来自波斯（当今伊朗）、伊拉克、土耳其、中东地区。

The cloth was thoroughly endorsed by Mughal emperors and their wives, who were rarely painted wearing anything else. They went so far as to bring the best weavers under their patronage, employing them directly and banning them from selling the very finest cloth to others. According to popular legend, its transparency led to yet more trouble when the emperor Aurangzeb scolded his daughter for appearing in public naked, when she was, in fact, ensconced in seven layers of it.

这种布料受到莫卧儿皇帝及其妻子的大力支持，他们在绘画作品中很少穿着其他布料。他们不远万里请来和资助最好的织布工，直接雇佣他们，禁止他们把最好的布料卖给别人。民间传说这种透明的布料引起了更多麻烦，奥朗则布皇帝斥责女儿裸体公开露面，其实她身穿的平纹细布有七层。

It was all going so well – then the British turned up. By 1793, the British East India Company had conquered the Mughal empire, and less than a century later the region was under the control of the British Raj.

一切都很顺利——然后英国人来了。1793年，英国东印度公司征服了莫卧儿帝国，不到一个世纪，英国就统治了这片地区。

Dhaka muslin was first showcased in the UK at The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in 1851. This spectacular event was the brainchild of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert, intended to showcase the wonders of the British Empire to their subjects. Some 100,000 obxts from the farthest corners of the globe were gathered together in a glittering glass hall, Crystal Palace, which was 1,851ft (564m) long and 128ft (39m) high.

1851年，英国举办的万国工业博览会首次展示了达卡平纹细布。这一盛况是维多利亚女王的丈夫艾伯特亲王的创意，旨在向臣民展示大英帝国的奇迹。天南海北近十万件物品被共同展示在晶莹剔透的玻璃大厅“水晶宫”里，长1851英尺（564米），高128英尺（39米）。

At the time, a yard of Dhaka muslin fetched prices ranging from £50-400, according to Islam – equivalent to roughly £7,000-56,000 today. Even the best silk was up to 26 times less expensive.

当时，每码达卡平纹细布售价50-400英镑，根据赛义夫·伊斯拉姆的说法——约合当今7000-56000英镑，比当时最上乘的布料还要贵26倍。

But while Victorian Londoners were fawning over the fabric, those who produced it were being pushed into debt and financial ruin. As the book Goods from the East, 1600–1800 explains, the East India Company first started meddling with the delicate process of manufacturing Dhaka muslin in the late 18th Century.

但是，虽然维多利亚时代的伦敦人对这种布料赞赏有加，但布料生产者却被迫负债和破产。正如《来自东方的商品》这本书所描述的，18世纪末，英国东印度公司开始干预达卡平纹细布精湛的生产工艺。

First the company replaced the region’s usual customers with those from the British Empire. "They really put a stranglehold on its production and came to control the whole trade," says Ashmore. Then they came down hard on the industry, pressurising the weavers to produce higher volumes of the fabric at lower prices.

首先，该公司以大英帝国的客户代替该地区的老客户。“他们完全垄断生产，控制整个贸易”，阿什莫尔说道。随后他们对行业变得苛刻，逼迫织布工低价生产更多的布料。

"You needed such a special skill to convert it [Phuti karpas] into cloth," says Islam. "It's a very arduous, expensive process – and at the end of the day, after all that you'd only get about eight grammes of fine muslin for one kilogramme of cotton."

“你需要特殊技能才能将它（普提卡帕斯）转化为布料”，伊斯拉姆说道。“这是一种既艰难又昂贵的织造工艺——最终每千克棉花只能织出大约8克平纹细布”。

As weavers struggled to keep up with these demands, they fell into debt, explains Ashmore. They were paid upfront for the cloth, which could take up to a year to make. But if the fabric was not considered to be up to the required standard, they would have to pay it all back. "They could never really keep up with these debt repayments," she says.

随着织布工吃力地满足需求，他们负债累累，阿什莫尔说道。他们收取预付费来生产布料，生产周期可能需要一年。但如果布料被认为没达到规定的标准，他们必须全款赔偿。“他们根本无力偿还这些债务”，她说道。

The final blow came from competition. Colonial enterprises such as the East India Company had been engaged in documenting the industries they relied on for years, and muslin was no exception. Every step of the process of making the fabric was recorded in meticulous detail.

最后一次打击来自竞争。多年来，东印度公司这样的殖民企业一直详细记载它们依赖的各个行业，平纹细布也不例外。他们记录了织造这种布料的每一道工序的细节。

As the European thirst for luxury fabrics increased, there was an incentive to make cheaper versions closer to home. In the county of Lancashire in northwest England, the textile baron Samuel Oldknow combined the British Empire’s insider knowledge with state-of-the-art technology, the spinning wheel, to supply Londoners with vast quantities. By 1784, he had 1,000 weavers working for him.

随着欧洲对奢华布料的需求增加，推动他们在接近本土的地方织造更便宜的布料。在英格兰西北部的兰开夏郡，纺织大亨塞缪尔·欧德诺将大英帝国的内部知识与技术先进的纺车相结合，为伦敦人供应大量的布匹。1784年，他雇佣了1000名织布工为他效劳。

Though the British-made muslin didn’t come close to Dhaka’s original – it was made with ordinary cotton, and woven at significantly lower thread counts – the combination of decades of mistreatment and a sudden decline in the need for imported textiles killed it off for good.

但是，英国织造的平纹细布与达卡原版布相差甚远——使用普通棉花织造，纱线密度严重下降——几十年的苛刻行为和进口纺织品需求的突然下降使这种布料彻底消失了。

As war, poverty, and earthquakes struck the region, some weavers switched to making lower-quality fabrics, while others became full-time farmers instead. In the end, the whole enterprise collapsed.

随着该地区遭受战争、贫穷、地震，部分织布工转而织造劣质布料，其余织布工成了地道的农民。最终，整个产业崩溃了。

"I think it’s important to remember that it was really a family occupation – we often talk about the weavers and how fantastic they were, but behind their work was the women, doing the spinning," says Hameeda Hossain, a human rights activist who has written a book about the muslin industry in Bengal. "So the industry involved a lot of people."

“我认为，记得这是一种真正的家庭作坊很重要——我们总是谈论那些了不起的织布工，但他们的后盾是纺纱妇女”，人权活动人士哈米达·侯赛因说道。他曾写过一本有关孟加拉平纹细布产业的书籍。“所以这个产业有大量的人力参与”。

As the generations passed, the knowledge of how to make Dhaka muslin was forgotten. And with no one to spin its silky threads, the phuti karpas plant, which had always been hard to tame – no one had been able to grow it away from the Meghna river – retreated back into wild obscurity. The legend of the loom was no more.

随着几代人的逝去，织造达卡平纹细布的知识失传了。由于没有人纺织普提卡帕斯这种难以驾驭的丝线——没有人能够在梅格纳河岸以外的地方种植普提卡帕斯——结果退化到默默无闻的野生状态。织布机的传奇不复存在。

A second chance

第二次机会......