News Tags

Related Keywords: caught between double-digit increase, China has a near monopoly, cost of raw materials, end customers refusal to accept higher prices over China, fifteen years ago, giant fashion brands, higher prices over China, Italian silk industry, Italy processed five million kilos of silk, now less than a million, the super dollar

Italian silk industry is caught between the double-digit increase in the cost of raw materials due to which a general refusal by end customers to accept higher prices over China and the super dollar on one side and giant fashion brands on the other.

Due to reduced supply of high-quality silk, where China has a near monopoly, retail prices have been rising for months, the impact exacerbated by a rise in the dollar, the currency in which raw materials are denominated.

Related Keywords: attemp to spin a niche, clusters of silkworms munch on piles, finished fabric, government-owned agricultural research center, Italian silk industry, Italy major importers, neckties, Northern Veneto region, nourishing hope of revival, scarves, shirts and dresses, silkmakers, supply chain of high quality material, uses the mainly Chinese silk

A new beginning for silk sector decades after Veneto's last silk mills were closed as a post-war economic boom lured farmers to cities, budding silkmakers - or sericulturists are making attempt to spin a niche around a traceable supply chain of high-quality material. They are nourishing hopes of a revival of Italy's 1,000 year-old silk industry as clusters of silkworms munch on piles of locally-grown mulberry leaves in a white marquee in Italy's northern Veneto region.