Last night I went to a lecture series at the local art museum held in conjunction with a traveling exhibition on Kimonos. The lecture was mostly about the history of the silk worm and how silk was found- turns out, like most other things, it was happenstance. The story told was that a princess Lei Tzu was having tea when a cocoon fell in her tea. As she was pulling it out, the string didn't break or end, but just kept coming. Her husband and her started harvesting the worm and kept it as a secret for thousands of years.
As word got around, finally I guess, spies and concubines would steal the worms and mulberry seeds- the only food silk worms eat, and start harvesting them themselves. Constatine, I believe, also stole some seeds and worms which grew fed the wests hunger for this product. Pretty awesome.
A couple cool things about Kimonos that I didn't know:
Long sleeves mean that you are single and short sleeves mean you are married.
Early printmaking and screen printing technique were created to adorn the Kimonos.
Kimonos started going out of style in the late 19th century because the monarchy thought they needed to catch up with western styles. (I'm still looking for images- but will get them up once ARTSTOR works)
The other interesting thing I learned last night is that Pensacola has a Japanese Cultural Center on the main campus. They have traditional teas, foods, dress, and many other events throughout the year.
I find this interesting because Pensacola was founded by Spanish, French, English, and Portuguese settlers in the early 16th century and there are local dig sites that currently excavate these sites to learn about the history of Pensacola. However, I have yet to find any museums, clubs, etc, that showcase the history of this city. We do have a museum of history which houses artifacts, but the traditions, customs, and cultures seem to have been lost over the last five hundred years. We do have Mardi Gras though.
http://www.pensacolamuseumofart.org/exhibitions/current
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