Shantung

Shantung is a crisp plain-weave silk whose signature is the slub: irregular thickenings in the weft yarn that ridge the surface in broken horizontal lines. The original cloth used silk from Shandong province, often from wild or semi-wild silkworms whose irregular filament made the slubs inevitable; the texture then became the point, deliberately preserved when cultivated silk took over. Shantung's dry hand and structural crispness made it a mid-century favorite for suits, cocktail dresses, and the structured wedding gown.