A golden cape woven from the silk of over a million wild spiders is on show at the V&A museum in London. Simon Peers from the UK and Nicholas Godley from the USA are working together in Madagascar whereby they make use of their hand-operated machine, based on a design from over 100 years ago. This machine was made specifically for harvesting silk from spiders. These Golden Orb spiders were collected from the wild, harnessed to the machine so that the silk could be extracted and then they are set free again at the end of each day.

It takes about one week for the spiders to regenerate their silk so the same spiders can be used over again. 23,000 spiders are needed for this process, and the end result is about 28g of silk which is naturally golden in colour. The large textiles in the world that have been created from spider silk will go on display at the V&A.

Via: Dezeen.com

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