The 16th-century English traveller
Ralph Fitch lauded the muslin he saw in
Sonargaon (in modern day
Narayanganj District,
Bangladesh).[8] He visited India in 1583, described Sonargaon, "as a town ...... where there is the best and finest cloth made in all India". Abul Fazl wrote "the Sarkar of Sonargaon produces a species of muslin very fine and in great quantity". During the 17th and 18th centuries,
MughalBengal emerged as the foremost muslin exporter in the world, with Mughal
Dhaka as capital of the worldwide muslin trade.[9][10]Dhakai Muslin was recognized as a
Geographical Indication (GI) product of
Bangladesh in 2018[11] and Banglar Muslin was recognized as a Geographical Indication (GI) product of the
Indian state of
West Bengal in 2024.[12]
In 1298 CE,
Marco Polo described the cloth in his book The Travels. He said it was made in Mosul, Iraq.[14] The 16th-century English traveller
Ralph Fitch lauded the muslin he saw in
Sonargaon.[15] He visited India in 1583, described Sonargaon, "as a town ...... where there is the best and finest cloth made in all India". Abul Fazl wrote "the Sarkar of Sonargaon produces a species of muslin very fine and in great quantity". During the 17th and 18th centuries,
MughalBengal emerged as the foremost muslin exporter in the world, with Mughal
Dhaka as capital of the worldwide muslin trade.[9][16]
It became highly popular in 18th-century
France and eventually spread across much of the Western world. Dhaka muslin was first showcased in the UK at The
Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in 1851.[17]
Manufacturing process
Since all the processes were manual, manufacturing involved many
artisans for yarn spinning and weaving activities, but the leading role lay with the material and
weaving.[18]
Ginning: For removing trash and
cleaning and combing the fibers and making them parallel ready for spinning a boalee (upper jaw of a
catfish) 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.[19]
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Muslins were originally made of cotton only.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 and weigh 3.8 oz (110 g) for 1 yd × 10 yd (0.91 m × 9.14 m). Some varieties of muslin were so thin that they could even pass through the aperture of a lady finger-ring.[20][21][22]
Transparency
Gaius Petronius Arbiter (1st century AD Roman courtier and author of the Satyricon) described the transparent nature of the muslin cloth as below:[23]
Thy bride might as well clothe herself with a garment of the wind as stand forth publicly naked under her clouds of muslin.
Certain delicate muslins were given poetic names such as Baft Hawa ("woven air"), Shabnam ("evening dew"), and
āb-i-ravān ("flowing water"). The latter name refers to a fine and transparent variety of fine muslin from Dacca.[25] The fabric's characteristics are summed up in its name.[26][27]
Types
Muslin has several kinds of variations. Many of the below are mentioned in
Ain-i-Akbari (16th-century detailed document)
Seerhand muslin was a variety in between
nainsook and mull (another muslin type, a very thin and soft). The fabric was resistant to washing, retaining its clearness.
Mull is another kind of muslin. It is a soft, thin, and semitransparent material. The name is derived from Hindi "mal" which means "soft". Swiss mull is a type of which is finished with stiffening agents.[40]
Decline under Company rule
During the period of
Company rule, the
East India Company imported British-produced cloth into the
Indian subcontinent, 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 a misreading of a report by
William Bolts from 1772.[41][42][43] 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.[41][44]
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 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 [45]Toile.[46] The word “toile,” from an Old French word for “cloth,” entered the
English language 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.[47]
In a funnel when
decanting fine wine or
port 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-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 fabric wrapped around the items in
barmbrack, a fruitcake traditionally eaten at Halloween in Ireland.
Muslin is a filter in traditional
Fijian kava production.
Beekeepers use muslin to filter melted
beeswax 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).
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-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 in
cerebrovascularneurosurgery to wrap around
aneurysms or intracranial vessels at risk for bleeding.[48] 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.[49]
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.[52]
^muslin (noun), etymology, Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, March 2003,
archived from the original on 10 August 2017, retrieved 17 March 2014
^Shamim, Shahid Hussain; Selim, Lala Rukh (2007). "Handloom Textiles". In Selim, Lala Rukh (ed.). Art and Crafts. Cultural survey of Bangladesh series. Vol. 8. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. p. 552.
OCLC299379796.
^Shamim, Shahid Hussain; Selim, Lala Rukh (2007). "Handloom Textiles". In Selim, Lala Rukh (ed.). Art and Crafts. Cultural survey of Bangladesh series. Vol. 8. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. p. 552.
OCLC299379796.
^Dey, Gouri (2015).
"Textiles under Mughals"(PDF). Fashion and Designing under the Mughals (Akbar to Aurangzeb): A Historical Perspective (PhD). University of North Bengal. p. 87.
Archived(PDF) from the original on 9 January 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2022. Cotton clothes: 1. Khasa per piece (than) – 3 rupiya to 15 muhr 2. Chautar per piece – 2 rupiya to 9 muhr 3. Malmal per piece – 4 rupiya 4. Tansukh per piece – 4 rupiya to 5 muhr
^Edwards, Michael (June 1976). Growth of the British Cotton Trade 1780–1815. Augustus M Kelley Pubs. p. 37.
ISBN0-678-06775-9.
^Marshall, P. J. (1988). India and Indonesia during the Ancien Regime. E.J. Brill. p. 90.
ISBN978-90-04-08365-3.
^Samuel, T. John (2013). Many avatars : challenges, achievements and the future. [S.l.]: Friesenpress.
ISBN978-1-4602-2893-7.
^Oxford English Dictionary: "toile"; its earliest known use in this sense was recorded in 1561.
^Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English ISBN 019 431 5339, 2000, page 1367
^Guido Hofenbitzer: Maßschnitte und Passform – Schnittkonstruktion für Damenmode: Band 2
Europa-Lehrmittel; 2. Edition (5. Oktober 2016) ISBN 978-3808562444, Page 26
^Pool, J. (1976). "Muslin gauze in intracranial vascular surgery. Technical note". Journal of Neurosurgery. 44 (1): 127–128.
doi:
10.3171/jns.1976.44.1.0127.
PMID1244428.