Just when you thought it was safe... it's back! Well, sort of. The original Spider Friday diaries were written by Hekebolos, aka Dante Atkins. I hope he's ok with me hijacking his series this once.
But I had to! And after you see this amazing cape made entirely from spider silk, you'll understand why. I hope.
So, without further ado, here is the Golden Orbweaver cape, currently on display at London's Victoria and Albert Museum as part of the "Golden Spider Silk" exhibit:
Photo: Bonnie Alter
Cape spun from spider silk. The weaving is done in the traditional Madagasgar method. It took the silk of one million Golden Orb spiders, collected over four years, to create.
It's eccentric and completely outrageous but it is gorgeous. This cape, on display in the exhibition "Golden Spider Silk" at London's Victoria & Albert Museum through June 5, is made out of the threads that a spider uses to make its web. The colour is completely natural: exactly what comes out of the spider.
Some statistics: It took four years and one million spiders to make the cape, completed in 2011. Each morning 80 people in Madagascar go out and collect the female Golden Orb (Nephilo madagascariensis) [sic: Nephila madagascariensis] spiders which are common to the highlands. The spiders are 2" in size and fit in the palm of your hand.
The process does not harm the spiders. At the end of the day, the spiders are returned to the forest.
The Golden Orb spider takes its name from the color of the web, not the spider. Here are a few images of Nephila madagascariensis:
Did I mention that these are BIG spiders? The females are approximately 2 inches long, the males are about 1/3 inch. The webs they weave can be as big as six feet across!
Each spider produces one silken strand approximately 40 yards long. It takes 24 strands to make a single usable thread, but the cape was made with 96 strand thread.
Photo © Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley
Golden Orb Spider silk on the loom. The design is a traditional Madagascar style, lamba Akotifahana.
The thicker brocade work was done with 960 strand thread.
Photo: Bonnie Alter
Closeup of brocade work
The cape design was inspired by the traditional weaving of Madagascar. The idea for using spider silk in weaving is at least three hundred years old. The Solomon Islanders used bamboo poles to gather webs and used the silk to make ritual masks from it. One French entrepreneur went so far as to set up a silking "college" on Madagascar when the island was still a French colony. The venture failed at the end of the 19th century due to the expense and difficulty involved.
I have heard it said that on a pound-for-pound basis, "spider silk is xx times stronger than steel." I don't know if that's true or just an old wooden spoon. The designers did not mention if they had tested the cape's durability, but one can imagine the curator becoming quite wroth if anyone were to take a sword to it.
Sat Jan 28, 2012 at 2:33 PM PT: Lineatus pointed out in the comments that my link to the Albert and Victoria museum in the diary was broken, but found another, more substantive page about the exhibit.
Here's the video from that page (7:07):