Off Mud and Cheese
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"Clothing as Celebration"
Stories about powerful women with style and substance.
Clara Diez
Clara Diéz is in a league of her own. Adventurous, curious, sophisticated, Spanish. Her life project, Formaje, aims to revive the culture and lifestyle around local artisanal cheese. By culture she means everything that surrounds this beautiful craft on the verge of extinction, threatened by over production, mass marketing and climate change. She is indeed an activist and a refined curator who, before selecting a specific cheese, goes back to analyze the terroir that feeds the animals, the process behind making the cheese and continues onto the consumer who needs to be informed, educated and invited to experience real cheese. She is in for the long run fighting a battle against giants of massification. Her world is that of searching for small farms and cows and sheep that roam freely, a world of best kept secrets, a world that is too chic for a click.
For Clara, cheese is a link, a vehicle, a bridge, a way to connect people, time periods, territories and cultures. Taste is language and flavour is the vehicle that moves people towards a more sustainable way of living and appreciating. “I want cheese to go hand-in-hand with art, fashion and technology,”
Cheese and identity are what Formaje is about. There is Manchego or Mahon, from Spain; Stilton de Colston Basset from France; burratas from Italy; Tronchón de Los Corrales; the succulent Caprí d’Argent de Marenostrum or the simple, but elegant, Queixo do País, made in Palas de Rei, Lugo, among many others.
Like artisanal cheese, mud silk is about terroir and cultural identity. Mud silk dates back to the Ming Dynasty in the fifth century when fishermen noted that their nets, treated with yam juice from a fibrous native tuber (dioscorea cirrhosa) not only prevented them from rotting, but turned black from being in contact with river mud. Thus, the tradition was applied to silk and has been kept alive within the region where sub-tropic river deltas carry a special iron-rich mud that binds to the silk.
Physically, mud silk has two sides: a glossy black face resembling leather or paper and a matte orange-brown reverse achieved using Dioscorea cirrhosa from Guandong, a medicinal tuber known for its antibacterial and antivirus properties. The black side has a thin, dark, resin-like film on its surface which has water resistant properties and is durable and easy to care for.
Mud silk varies in weight from dense to light and airy. Its sheen also changes over time the longer it is worn and the more it is washed. The lustrous finish increases with age, the color becomes darker, and the texture softens. The wet fabric exudes its own fragrance too – a faint echo of the ground yam with which it is dyed. As its color increases in intensity over time, one is reminded of the patina acquired by leather. In fact, the best quality fabric is stored for years. Properly aged tea-silk is as rare as fine wine and sought after by collectors worldwide.
