Threads of Gold: The Story of Egyptian Cotton
Kenzy Fahmy
Egyptian cotton has become practically synonymous with luxury. Since the discovery of the long-staple variety just over 200 years ago, it has steadily made its way into every corner of the high-end fabrics industry. Its reputation certainly precedes it, and much like French cheese or Greek olive oil, there are few who don’t know of its unparalleled quality. So what’s the story behind one of the world’s most luxurious textiles?
The cultivation of cotton goes back thousands of years, with some of the earliest evidence of cultivation and domestication dating back to around 5000-7000 BCE. The ancient Peruvians, Sudanese and Pakistanis were among the first cultures to make fabric out of cotton; they say the very first strain ever recorded was in the Indian subcontinent, in the Indus Valley, although there have been other records of domestication in the ancient Sudanese Kingdom of Kush, as well as some very early examples that have been discovered in Huaca Prieta in Peru and in the Tehuacan Valley in Mexico.
Egyptians have been growing and using cotton for their textiles for over a thousand years, some accounts report even earlier dates that go back to around 2500 BCE. There is some debate as to whether the ancient Egyptians grew cotton or not; flax was the main source of fiber in the production of textiles, wool to a much lesser degree because it was considered impure. There are accounts of cotton being used by priests but these tend be closer to the 5th century BCE. Of course the quality they could achieve at the time was nowhere near the quality of modern Egyptian cotton. It was a completely different strain, one of the Old World varieties which had much shorter fibers that were both coarser and weaker than the New World strains. Cultivation and manufacture eventually made its way into southern Europe with the Arab conquests; the word “cotton” actually comes from the Arabic qutn.
But it wasn’t until the 19th century though that Egyptian cotton became the luxury item it is today. French textile engineer Louis Alexis Jumel apparently discovered long-staple cotton in 1918 in a Cairo garden belonging to a Turkish officer. This new variety, with its long and strong strands, produced a fabric that was softer, more durable and more absorbent than any other. Jumel, who was in Egypt at the time to work on a spinning and weaving project, was able to convince Egypt’s then ruler, Mohamed Ali Pasha, that cultivating this particular strain could completely revolutionize the cotton industry, and he was right. The crop would become one of the country’s biggest sources of revenue and would remain so for many years to come.
By the mid-1820s, around 10,000 tons of the new cotton were being produced and shipped abroad. Special machinery was needed to work with the fine strands and produce the best quality threads possible; for a while they could only be found in specialized mills in the English county of Lancashire. But there were still flaws in the quality of the resulting product and it was the combination with a different seed, the Sea Island variety, and the optimal growing conditions of the Egyptian Delta that eventually produced the perfect strands that are so highly sought after today.
Just a few decades later, in 1861, the American Civil War would prove to be another major milestone in the story of Egyptian cotton. Blockades imposed on southern ports essentially cut off American cotton plantations from the rest of the world. This left the English mills with nothing to spin and created a massive rift in the global trade, production and sale of cotton, which of course drove prices to an all-time high. It also created an opportunity for other players in the industry, like Egypt, to step in and fill the demand created by the war.
King Fouad visits a cotton mill in Lancashire, UK in 1929 Image Credit
Between 1861 and 1863, Egypt had more than doubled its cotton production. This was also the time when Khedive Ismail was coming into power and ushering in his own wave of modernization, growth and prosperity. Newly built and expanded irrigation canals, railways and telegram lines all played their part in the booming industry and Egypt was reveling in its newfound wealth.
It didn’t take long though for the Europeans to take notice of the incredible potential that lay in the Egyptian cotton industry and the 1860s saw a significant influx of foreigners looking to make a profit. With this influx came a whole new wave of development, from reviving a crumbling and decaying Alexandria and the creation of new Cairo neighborhoods to the establishment of several new foreign banks.
Ismail Pasha’s mission of transforming Egypt meant that at one point he was borrowing heavily from these banks and had begun to accrue some hefty debts, debts that he could not pay. The end of the American Civil War only served to add further stress to the situation; once US cotton was back on the market prices took a steep fall and created a dangerous deficit in the Egyptian national budget; this was very possibly one of the major developments that led to the British occupation of Egypt. More and more of the local cotton industry was taken over by foreigners, and by 1952, only about 5% of the country’s registered cotton brokers were Egyptian.
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While Egyptian cotton has managed to retain its perfect reputation over the last 200 years or so, the industry itself has gone through its fair share of hardship and turmoil. Thankfully there are several individuals and organizations, from private to public, whose mission it is to revive the industry and try to bring it back to its former glory. The Egyptian government has been working closely with local producers and international organizations to breathe new life into the local industry. Recent projects are aiming to provide support to growers and manufacturers, introducing more sustainable agricultural practices and better systems for quality assurance and certification. Local businesses like CottonBall and Kotn are once more grabbing hold of the reins and bringing Egyptian cotton production back to its roots.