Columnar in shape, falling from the shoulders to the ground, with sometimes a silk cord at the waist or under the bust, it is made from China silk that has been hand-worked into thousands of vertical pleats a process invented by Fortuny, and one that invests the silk with both iridescence and a springy eternal life.
WSJ: The Rich Pleasures of Pleats | Fortuny | Spanish Institute | By Laura Jacobs
The conversion is rejuvenating China's ancient Silk Road to the west, immortalised by Marco Polo in the 14th century but rarely used since sea routes made the camel trains redundant.
BBC: News | oldBusiness | The future shines for China's Silk Road
Western traders brought these counting boards east on the Silk Road to China.
Sericulture and silk craftsmanship of China, based in Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces near Shanghai and Chengdu in Sichuan Province, have an ancient history.
In fact, Jurm's neighboring district of Khash located on the ancient Silk Road to China is the source of the Afghan word for opium poppy.
And examples of ancient silk garments, accessories and textiles are being shown outside China for the first time as Nottingham Castle hosts the Living in Silk exhibition as part of the East Midlands' Cultural Olympiad, the council said.
Buddhism had flowed along the Silk Road and taken root in China.
Pakistan and Russia are as enthused about the Silk Trade Route's revival as China itself.
BBC: News | oldBusiness | The future shines for China's Silk Road
"Whereas China wiped out Korea's textile industry, Bangladesh or Cambodia won't wipe out China's, " says Ben Simpfendorfer of Silk Road Economics in Hong Kong.
Mr Thubron spent eight months travelling the 11, 300 kilometres (7, 000 miles) of the old Silk Road from Xian in the heart of China to Antioch (Antakya) in Turkey and, although he scrupulously admits in a note that his trip was broken by fighting in northern Afghanistan and that he was obliged to continue the following year, this interruption does not disrupt the flow of his narrative.
Jewish history in China dates to at least the 8th century, when West Asian traders roamed the Silk Road.
For most Chinese companies, the domestic market is already so big and dynamic, the additional revenues offered by investing in smaller markets in the Gulf fail to justify the difficulty of operating there, according to Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist and author of The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World is Turning Away from the West and Rediscovering China.
FORBES: Add Oil! Chinese Drill-Pipe Maker Ventures Into The Middle East
Chang Mai straddles one of Asia's great crossroads - a southern spur of the Silk Road - fusing commerce and culture between points farther north and west in modern-day China, Laos and Myanmar.
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