Bonnet Silk Museum Jujurieux

Discover the wealth of fabrics, the secrets of their manufacture and the trades that brought them to life at the Musée des Soieries Bonnet. A multicolored, shimmering heritage, a piece of working-class life and an industrial history emblematic of the Lyon region. The museum invites you on a journey between the sensuality of the materials and the exceptional skills of the weavers, spinners and seamstresses.

The weft of silk

Close to the capital of silk and its famous Canuts, this boarding mill wove miles of delicate silks, rich taffetas, fragile muslins… sumptuous, shimmering fabrics that made fashion from the mid-19th to the early 21st century. Bonnet silks have inspired the greatest haute couture houses, from Dior to Chanel, from Yves Saint-Laurent to Lanvin, from Lacroix to Valentino…

You’ll be dazzled by the beauty and richness of the fabrics and garments on display at the museum, veritable works of art celebrating the excellence of an internationally recognized savoir-faire.

You’ll be amazed by the closed-circuit organization and complexity of the weaving looms.

In the factory, with its fabrics, dresses and bobbins, as well as its period looms still in working order, you feel transported: you can imagine the women of yesteryear at work. Eyewitness accounts plunge us into the life of the time.

Excellence

The museum is located at the center of the Bonnet Silk Mill site, a veritable “city within a city” that lived in autarky. The site bears the imprint of a bygone era’s concept of work and education for young girls. Yet the sleepy factory still seems to resonate with the noise of the looms and sometimes the laughter of the workers, despite the harsh working conditions of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

For almost a century, under the aegis of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the boarding school’s orphan girls of cosmopolitan origins lived there in autarky, between boarding school and work. Numerous home workshops also provided a livelihood for local households. At the turn of the century, the Bonnet silk mill employed 2,000 people, including more than 600 boarders, around 500 day students and 800 home workers!

The museum brings back to life the weaving looms that stopped working in 2001. The testimonies of workers and employees tell the story of a company founded in 1810, and the pride of an excellent know-how that has contributed to an internationally renowned heritage.

200years

textile history

1 200people

employed in the plant

13 000workers

residents over 100 years

9euros

Adult rate (children €6)

GOOD TO KNOW

From Jujurieux to Tomioka

As it grew, the company founded by Claude Joseph Bonnet, famous for the quality of his plain black fabrics, evolved. In 1880, the founder’s heirs switched to color and incorporated patterns through mechanical weaving. The company went international, recruiting in Italy and Poland as it expanded. The company’s reputation reached as far as Japan, where it served as a model for the Tomioka silk mill, built in 1872 with machines imported from France.

Following an epidemic that decimated the silkworms, the canuts turned to Japan, whose weavers were renowned for their expertise. By the end of the 19th century, France had become the leading importer of Japanese silk. As Japan sought to industrialize in the Maiji era, it asked French technician Paul Brunat to set up the Tomioka factory. Brunat was inspired by the Établissements C. J. Bonnet factory in Jujurieux. The Tomioka silk mill employed many young women from the surrounding countryside, who found accommodation, medical services, apprenticeships and more. A model very close to the boarding school.

Bonnet Silk Factories

Elevation : 294m

19 bis rue Claude Joseph Bonnet, Parking Place Marcel GRILLET, 01640 Jujurieux

04 74 36 97 60

www.cerdonvalleedelain.fr

Spoken languages

Environment

In the country
Village centre

Access

From the A42 motorway take exit n°9 for Pont d'Ain, then the D1084 towards Nantua, followed by the D36 towards Jujurieux.

From the A40 motorway take exit n°8 for Saint-Martin-du-Fresne, then the D1084 towards Lyon followed by the D36 towards Jujurieux.

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