An elaborately embroidered cape made entirely out of golden silk extracted from spiders is to go on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The silk thread comes from female Golden Orb spiders collected in the highlands of Madagascar. Eighty people collected, harnessed and released wild spiders every day for seven years to produce enough silk.
A four metre long scarf will be displayed with the cape, the largest items ever fashioned from the spider silk.
More than a million spiders were involved in the project created by Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley.
The brilliant golden colour is the natural hue of the silk. "This is a fantasy, this is a magic. It's to beguile and enchant," says Nicholas Godley. "It's a bit of poetry really."
"We both thought this was the craziest thing you could possibly do that has never been done," says Simon Peers, who admits that he is still frightened of spiders despite the project.
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