Baft-hawa, or woven air. Skin of the Moon. A cloth so fluid that a 100-metre-long length of it could be pulled through the centre of a ring.
These are just some of the names and characteristics attributed to Dhaka muslin, an ancient premium fabric known for its incredibly light and fine nature. Flowy, elegant, and strikingly translucent, this fabric was highly coveted centuries ago. But why did it suddenly become almost extinct?
Weaving a Legend
Dhaka muslin was created with , a variant of cotton that grew along the banks of the Meghna River, one of the three major rivers in Bangladesh that form the Ganges Delta. Although the strands of this variant of cotton were short and prone to fraying – a far cry from the typical cotton used to make most textiles today – local weavers developed and refined an innovative 16-step process to transform this special cotton into
