A missionary’s legacy
When Jesuit Priest Jacob Paul Camboue was sent to Madagascar on missionary work, he cannot possibly have realised that his legacy would be on display years later in the Victoria & Albert museum. Camboue’s passing interest in zoology led him to design a machine for ‘milking’ golden orb spiders of their silk. He believed that this could these tiny threads could one day be spun into threads, and that maybe those threads could be spun into cloth.
Over a century later textile designer Simon Peers and entrepreneur Nicholas Godley took up the challenge. Over a period of four years 70 volunteers collected 1 million spiders, whose silk went into weaving the spectacular garment which you see below.
Image: newscientist.com
Stunningly beautiful though it is, you have to ask yourself whether all the man hours and effort was worth it? Or do you? Does beauty need an ‘excuse’, or does it provide its own justification? Given the incredible strength of spider’s silk, scientists are hoping that the lessons learnt by Godley and Peers will find their way off the catwalk and into medicine, engineering and other branches of research. An austere wartime poster may have harrumphed ‘is your journey really necessary’, but I’m not sure you can ask the same question about beauty.
Even if they don’t though – won’t it have been worth it? Sometimes an act of extravagant beauty is a celebration of our best humanity. When Mary ‘wasted’ a priceless jar of perfume on Jesus, he not only commended her act of love, but insisted that it would always be told as part of the Gospel – as indeed it has been.
What do you think..and would you wear it?
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January 27, 2012 at 2:47 pm
@drgeorgemorley
Enjoyed this thoughtful post! Yes, I saw this earlier in the week and it made me ponder. I think beauty at its best is gratuitous, and to be enjoyed and celebrated – and I love and am passionately interested in fashion (Vogue and the Church Times battle for space on our kitchen table!). But I’m not at all sure about spider silk being harvested for fashion… A million spiders and a machine to ‘milk’ them… creepy. If it was a breakthrough in medicine I’d be a bit less hesitant, but for a frock?! Don’t mind at all about the man- and woman-hours – how lovely to spend time making beautiful things, even if they are only to be worn by rich, thin, pampered women in a one-third world. Beauty is still beauty, creativity still graced.
And, by-the-by, the spider frock is a rather clerical looking frock, isn’t it!
January 27, 2012 at 3:04 pm
preachersa2z
I’m tempted to make a truly awful joke about ordering spider frocks ‘on the web’ , but I won’t. I must say -as something of an arachnophobe I would not have been first in the queue of volunteers for dealing with the spiders!