Golden Spider Silk

A display of large textiles woven from spider silk. The only examples of their kind in the world, these textiles include a four-metre-long brocaded piece made from the silk of more than one million female Golden Orb spiders collected in the highlands of Madagascar, which took around four years to make, as well as a cape which will be on public display for the first time. The earliest recorded use of spider silk for weaving dates from eighteenth-century France, where gloves, stockings and, it's believed, a full suit of clothes were produced for Louis XIV. The textiles on show have been made by Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley, who began experimenting with spider silk in 2004 to see if they could revive this forgotten art. Trained handlers extract the silk – on average, 23,000 spiders yield around one ounce – which is a natural golden colour. The display also includes background material and a short film showing the process from collecting the spiders to weaving the textiles.