'Woven air': How Bangladesh is reviving an elite forgotten fabric

A weaver using a handloom to make traditional muslin garments at the Dhaka Muslin Project facility in Narayanganj. Photos: Munir uz zaman/AFP

With wooden spinning wheels and hand-drawn looms, Bangladesh is painstakingly resurrecting a fabric once worn by Marie Antoinette and Jane Austen but long thought forever lost to history.

Dhaka muslin was stitched from threads so fine that popular folklore in European parlours held that a change in the light or a sudden rain shower would render its wearer apparently naked.