Silk has been woven around Lake Como since the fifteenth century, when mulberry trees were planted across Lombardy to feed silkworms. The worms and the mulberries are long gone; the mills stayed. What accumulated there over five hundred years is not raw material but knowledge — of weaving, dyeing and printing silk in a way that is hard to copy quickly elsewhere.
Why the region still matters
Silk is easy to weave badly. The thread is fine, it slips, and colour behaves differently on protein fibre than on cotton. The mills around Como print in many passes with tight registration, which is why a pattern there has clean edges instead of a soft halo where two colours meet. Look closely at a cheap printed scarf and you will see that halo.
Reading a silk label
Momme is the number that matters. It measures weight: how much 100 yards of 45-inch fabric weighs in pounds. Scarf silk usually runs from 8 to 16 momme. Below 10 the fabric is thin and translucent and creases badly. Ours is 14 momme, which falls with some weight, holds a knot and does not go transparent in daylight.
100% silk is not a given. Polyester takes print well and costs a fraction. It also feels cool and slick rather than warm, and it does not breathe.
The hem tells you a lot. A hem rolled and stitched by hand gives a scarf its soft, rounded edge and its fall. A flat machine hem is faster and lies differently.
How to look after it
Silk does not need washing as often as people think. Air it overnight and most of a day is undone.
When it does need washing: cold water, a drop of mild shampoo, no wringing. Roll it in a towel to take the water out, then let it dry flat away from sun and radiators. Iron on the lowest setting from the reverse while slightly damp.
Perfume is the real enemy. Alcohol leaves marks on silk that do not always come out. Spray first, dress after.
Why we say Lake Como and not Italy
Made in Italy covers a lot of ground. Naming the place is a check we invite you to make — and the reason our scarves feel the way they do.