2,000-year-old see-through Chinese gown, the world’s lightest silk dress, is finally replicated successfully
- Hunan Museum has copy made as the original, which survived being stolen in 1983, loses sheen after years of being exhibited
- Having failed in past attempts at copying it, brocade experts design a special loom and come up with a novel way to make the new dress look aged
After years of effort, craftspeople have made a replica of the world’s lightest silk dress – discovered in a tomb and more than 2,100 years old – and it will go on display in central China in place of the original, it has been reported.
Two susha danyi (plain, unlined gauze gowns) were found in 1972 in the tomb of Xin Zhui, marquise of Dai, who was buried in around 148BC during the Han dynasty.
The see-through dresses, described in an ancient text as being as “thin as a cicada wing” and “light as smoke”, were stolen from the Hunan Museum by a 17-year-old in 1983. One of the dresses, weighing only 48 grams (1.7 ounces), was destroyed by his panicked mother, who anonymously returned the other one, which weighed 49 grams. It was slightly damaged.
The museum was keen to reproduce the surviving dress after it lost its sheen and became less elastic during years of being exhibited, and in 2016 it commissioned the Nanjing Yunjin Research Institute, which specialises in traditional Chinese brocade, to make a replica, the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported.
The measurements were provided by the museum from the original records when the dresses were uncovered, the report stated.
Previous attempts to make a replica failed, with the reproductions being much heavier than the original, which was made of plain, unlined gauze. Excluding the weight of the collar, cuffs and yijin – a piece attached at the front of the gown – which were made of tough silk, it would weigh only about 20 grams.