Craft lineages · Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
Suzhou silk
Suzhou silk refers to filament-silk weaving and embroidery associated with the Suzhou region of Jiangsu, including pictorial Su embroidery made through controlled thread direction, density and colour.
Suzhou’s textile history includes weaving, dyeing and embroidery carried out across workshops and institutions rather than by one continuous house style. The regional label needs to be connected to a specific technique and object record.
Filament silk is identified through a combination of fibre evidence, yarn structure and construction. Lustre or softness alone is insufficient because synthetic fibres and finishing treatments can imitate both.
For embroidery, examine stitch direction, thread splitting, density, edge treatment and the reverse. A transferred image can reproduce a motif, but it does not reproduce the structure of hand-guided stitches.