Greek fashion firms revitalize centuries-old silk tradition

At Kostas Mouhtaridis' silk factory in Soufli, the non-stop "clunk-click" of the weaving machinery is a loud but welcome sound.

The factory is a few hundred meters from the Evros River, which forms Greece's natural border with Turkey. It is one of Europe's most heavily militarised areas, patrolled constantly to deter illegal immigration into the European Union.

Soufli, a once-booming silk factory town in Greece's remote northeastern Thrace region, saw its centuries-old tradition of silkworm rearing, weaving and dying nearly snuffed out during Greece's decade-long financial crisis.

The town had already suffered a heavy blow when cheaper Chinese and Indian silk flooded the market in the 1990s. The companies that managed to survive then were later finished off during the financial crisis that erupted in 2008.

By 2012, there were only two silk makers left in the town, eking out an existence by supplying small home furnishing stores.

Yet seven years later, Mouhtaridis has few complaints. The company founded by his father in 1977 has been revived by Greece's resurgent fashion and luxury goods industry as well as by technology that helps small-scale producers.

"We used to give (silk products) to stores that took five, 10 meters (32 feet), or 50 meters (165 feet)," Mouhtaridis said, speaking at his factory, which employs 10 people.

"The maximum (order) we would get was 100 meters (320 feet)."
"And we're going to experiment."