Muslin () is a

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

plain weave Plain weave (also called tabby weave, linen weave or taffeta weave) is the most basic of three fundamental types of textile weaving, weaves (along with satin weave and twill). It is strong and hard-wearing, and is used for fashion and furnishin ...

. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It gets its name from the city of

Mosul, Iraq Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...

, where it was first manufactured. Muslin of uncommonly delicate handspun yarn was handwoven in the

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

region of

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

and imported into Europe for much of the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 2013, the traditional art of weaving ''

Jamdani Jamdani ( bn, জামদানি) is a fine muslin textile (figured with different patterns) produced for centuries in South Rupshi of Narayanganj district in Bangladesh on the bank of Shitalakhwa river. The historic production of jamdani was ...

'' muslin in Bangladesh was included in the list of

Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity was made by the Director-General of UNESCO starting in 2001 to raise awareness of intangible cultural heritage and encourage local communities to protect them and t ...

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

History

In 1298 CE, Marco Polo described the cloth in his book ''The Travels''. He said it was made in Mosul, Iraq. The 16th-century English traveller Ralph Fitch lauded the muslin he saw in Sonargaon. During the 17th and 18th centuries,

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

emerged as the foremost muslin exporter in the world, with Mughal

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...

as capital of the worldwide muslin trade. It became highly popular in 18th-century

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and eventually spread across much of the Western world.

Manufacturing process

Since all the processes were manual, manufacturing involved many

artisan An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...

s for yarn spinning and weaving activities, but the leading role lay with the material and

weaving Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal th ...

. * Ginning: For removing trash and cleaning and combing the fibers and making them parallel ready for spinning a ''boalee'' (upper jaw of a

catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the three largest species alive, ...

) was used. * Spinning and weaving: For extra humidity they used to weave during the rainy season for elasticity in the yarns and to avoid breakages. The process was so sluggish that it could take over five months to weave one piece of muslin.

Characteristics

= Thin

Muslins were originally made of cotton only. These were very thin, transparent, delicate and feather light breathable fabrics. There could be 1000–1800 yarns in

warp Warp, warped or warping may refer to: Arts and entertainment Books and comics * WaRP Graphics, an alternative comics publisher * ''Warp'' (First Comics), comic book series published by First Comics based on the play ''Warp!'' * Warp (comics), a ...

and weigh for . Some varieties of muslin were so thin that they could even pass through the aperture of a lady finger-ring.

= Transparency

Gaius Petronius Arbiter Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
''āb-i-ravān'' ("flowing water"). The latter name refers to a fine and transparent variety of fine muslin from Dacca. The fabric's characteristics are summed up in its name.

Types

Muslin has several kinds of variations. Many of the below are mentioned in

Ain-i-Akbari The ''Ain-i-Akbari'' ( fa, ) or the "Administration of Akbar", is a 16th-century detailed document recording the administration of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar, written by his court historian, Abu'l Fazl in the Persian language. It for ...

(16th-century detailed document) *'' Khasa'' *'' Tansukh'' *''

Nainsook Nainsook is a soft, fine, lightweight form of muslin. Muslin encompasses a broad range of fabrics of varying weight and fineness, but is always a plain weave, cotton fabric. The word 'nainsook' is first documented in 1790, and derives from the Hi ...

'' *''

Chautar Chautar or Chaotaer (Cotton cloth) is an old cotton fabric of the Mughal period. The chautar was a mulmul variety, and the finest mulmul was termed as "Mulmul Shahi" in Hindi and Persian languages. It was produced in Eastern India. Way back, Ch ...

'' *Alliballi The name embraces , 'superior', , 'good'. *Adatais, a fine and clear fabric. * Seerhand muslin was a variety in between

nainsook Nainsook is a soft, fine, lightweight form of muslin. Muslin encompasses a broad range of fabrics of varying weight and fineness, but is always a plain weave, cotton fabric. The word 'nainsook' is first documented in 1790, and derives from the Hi ...

and mull (another muslin type, a very thin and soft). The fabric was resistant to washing, retaining its clearness. *and varieties of mulmul (

Mulboos khas Mulboos khas was a special kind of mulmul cloth made for the King and used for Royal clothing in the Mughal Empire. The Mulboos khas was a kind of first-grade muslin exclusively manufactured in Royal Karkhanas (''Mulboos khas kootees'') notedly i ...

Jhuna Jhuna was a fine sheer fabric, an open-weave structure similar to gauze. Jhuna was used primarily in the dresses of the dancers. It was another kind of fine muslin produced in Bengal with other peers such as . Name Jhuna is a derivation word ...

, ''Sarkar ali, Sarbati, Tarindam'') were among the most delicate cotton muslins produced in the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

More variations

Mull is another kind of muslin. It is a soft, thin, and semitransparent material. The name is derived from Hindi which means "soft". Swiss mull is a type of which is finished with stiffening agents.

Decline under Company rule

During the period of

Company rule Company rule in India (sometimes, Company ''Raj'', from hi, rāj, lit=rule) refers to the rule of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when ...

, the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

imported British-produced cloth into the

, but became unable to compete with the local muslin industry. The Company administration initiated several policies in an attempt to suppress the muslin industry, and muslin production subsequently experienced a period of decline. It has been alleged that in some instances Indian weavers were rounded up and their thumbs chopped off, although this has been refuted by historians as an misreading of a report by

William Bolts William Bolts (1738–1808) was a Dutch-born British merchant active in India. He began his career as an employee of the East India Company, and subsequently became an independent merchant. He is best known today for his 1772 book, ''Consideratio ...

from 1772. The quality, finesse and production volume of Bengali muslin declined as a result of these policies, continuing when India transitioned from Company rule to British Crown control.

Uses

Dressmaking and sewing

Because muslin is an inexpensive, unbleached cotton fabric available in different weights, it is often used as a backing or lining for quilts, and therefore can often be found in wide widths in the quilting sections of fabric stores. When

sewing Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a sewing needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era. Before the invention of spinning yarn or weaving fabr ...

clothing, a dressmaker may test the fit of a garment by using muslin fabric to make a test-model before cutting pieces from more expensive fabric to make the final product, thereby avoiding potential costly mistakes. In the United States, these test-models are themselves sometimes referred to as "muslins,” the process is called "making a muslin," and "muslin" has become the generic term for any test- or fitting garment, regardless of the fabric it is made from. In Britain and Australia, the term for a test- or fitting garment used to be ''Oxford English Dictionary'': "toile"; its earliest known use in this sense was recorded in 1561.

Toile Toile (French for "canvas") is a textile fabric comparable to fine batiste with a cloth weave. Natural silk or chemical fiber filaments are usually used as materials. The word ''toile'' can refer to the fabric itself or to a test garment sewn ...

. The word “toile,” from an Old French word for “cloth,” entered the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

around the 12th century. (Today, ''toile'' simply refers to any sheer fabric, which may be made, for example, from linen or cotton.) The modern German term for a test- or fitting garment is ''Nesselmodell''.

Use in food production

Muslin can be used as a filter: * In a funnel when decanting fine wine or

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

to prevent sediment from entering the decanter * To separate liquid from mush (for example, to make apple juice: wash, chop, boil, mash, then filter by pouring the mush into a muslin bag suspended over a jug) * To retain a liquidy solid (for example, in home

cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, ...

-making, when the milk has curdled to a gel, pour into a muslin bag and squash between two saucers (upside down under a brick) to squeeze out the liquid whey from the cheese curd) Muslin is the material for the traditional cloth wrapped around a Christmas pudding. Muslin is the fabric wrapped around the items in

barmbrack Barmbrack ( ga, bairín breac), also often shortened to brack, is a yeast bread with added sultanas and raisins. The bread is associated with Halloween in Ireland, where an item (often a ring) is placed inside the bread, with the person who rece ...

, a fruitcake traditionally eaten at Halloween in Ireland. Muslin is a filter in traditional Fijian kava production. Beekeepers use muslin to filter melted

beeswax Beeswax (''cera alba'') is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive workers ...

to clean it of particles and debris.

Set design and photography

Muslin is often the cloth of choice for theatre sets. It is used to mask the background of sets and to establish the mood or feel of different scenes. It receives paint well and, if treated properly, can be made translucent. It also holds dyes well. It is often used to create nighttime scenes because when dyed, it often gets a wavy look with the color varying slightly, such that it resembles a night sky. Muslin shrinks after it is painted or sprayed with water, which is desirable in some common techniques such as soft-covered flats. In video production, muslin is used as a cheap greenscreen or bluescreen, either pre-colored or painted with latex paint (diluted with water). It is commonly used as a background for the chroma key technique. Muslin is the most common backdrop material used by photographers for formal portrait backgrounds. These backdrops are usually painted, most often with an abstract mottled pattern. In the early days of

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

-making, and until the late 1910s, movie studios did not have the elaborate lights needed to illuminate indoor sets, so most interior scenes were sets built outdoors with large pieces of muslin hanging overhead to diffuse sunlight.

Medicine

Surgeons use muslin

gauze Gauze is a thin, translucent fabric with a loose open weave. In technical terms "gauze" is a weave structure in which the weft yarns are arranged in pairs and are crossed before and after each warp yarn keeping the weft firmly in place. ...

in cerebrovascular

neurosurgery Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...

to wrap around

aneurysm An aneurysm is an outward bulging, likened to a bubble or balloon, caused by a localized, abnormal, weak spot on a blood vessel wall. Aneurysms may be a result of a hereditary condition or an acquired disease. Aneurysms can also be a nidus (s ...

s or intracranial vessels at risk for bleeding. The thought is that the gauze reinforces the artery and helps prevent rupture. It is often used for aneurysms that, due to their size or shape, cannot be microsurgically clipped or coiled.

Recognition

In 2013, the traditional art of weaving ''

'' muslin in Bangladesh was included in the list of

. In 2020, it was given

Geographical indication A geographical indication (GI) is a name or sign used on products which corresponds to a specific geographical location or origin (e.g., a town, region, or country). The use of a geographical indication, as an indication of the product's source, ...

status as a product of Bangladesh due to efforts of the government of Bangladesh, the fourth GI-certified product after Jamdani sarees, Hilsa fish, and Khirsapat mangoes.

Revival

Muslin saree was woven in Bangladesh by a group of researchers under a government project. The research team has woven six muslin sarees in 2020. It is expecting to launch the muslin saree in the market in the next two years.Legendary Muslin revived again, Textile Today, 2 January 2021
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References

External links

* * {{Bengali clothing Bengal Subah Bangladeshi clothing Bengali culture Folk costumes Indian clothing Textile arts of Bangladesh Woven fabrics