ITALIAN FASHION: Many Yarns Spin a Revival in Calabria

CAULONIA, Italy— Dipped into the Ionian Sea on one side, and the Tyrrhenian on the other, the wild mountainous region of Calabria has long been sidestepped by development. Communication — and cooperative activities — are often difficult.

Yet in the past few years, various activities from textiles to tourism have sprung up that are injecting new life into local economies. And a younger generation is choosing to stay in Calabria rather than look for work in the north.

Among them are young, well-educated women intent on reviving centuries-old weaving techniques that produced some rare and wonderful silks and linen cloths. And they have turned to the older folk, the depositaries of age-old weaving skills, for help.

Anna-Maria Rattuis, a pharmacist by profession, is passionate about the rich heritage of silk-weaving for which the region was once renowned, and she is devoting her free time to encouraging a return to sericulture in the area.

"You can't weave the cloths if you don't have the right yarns," she said in the little seaside town of Caulonia. "Around here we used to have mulberry trees, not citrus groves. Nowadays local farmers can't find a market for their fruit, the silkworms up in the northern Veneto region have stopped producing silk because of the pollution, and down here our traditional weavers can't afford artisan yarns and find the Chinese industrial ones unsuitable for their fabrics.

" In the past few years, we've actually been dispatching fresh, clean mulberry leaves to feed the silkworms up north. Surely the whole situation needs rethinking before it's too late."