Chinese brocade is one of the most technically sophisticated silk textiles in China. Woven with colorful silk and gold threads to create a wide variety of patterns, it earned the name “brocade” for its richly patterned appearance. In China’s history of more than seven thousand years of sericulture and silk reeling, brocade has long been regarded as the most beautiful expression of silk. It once traveled across the world of its time with the camel caravans of the overland Silk Road and the fleets of the Maritime Silk Road. This unprecedented and dazzling textile filled the Western world of that era with a deep and ancient fascination for the distant, mysterious East.