The dyeing happens before the weaving. The silk is divided into skeins and dipped in three successive baths, the lightest colour first and the darkest last, so every thread carries a gradient along its length before it reaches the loom. That is the chine effect, and it is a wholly hand process. Woven up, it gives the damask a shifting, watered depth that no piece-dyed cloth can imitate.
The second thing to know is the surface. Rubelli alternates the tension on the weft as it is pulled and twisted, which puckers the silk into a hammered finish, so light breaks across it instead of sliding off. The figure itself is baroque and large, on a 64 cm vertical and 70 cm horizontal repeat.
It is the most celebrated cloth in the Rubelli collection, and at 162 g a metre it is a decorating silk: curtains, blinds, cushions, a bed. Seventeen colourways, 140 cm wide, made in Italy.
