Fil Au Chinois Thread - Shop

The north of France is the traditional area for textile and thread production.
Among the most mythical of thread brands, Fil Au Chinois, a brand which would have disappeared without the tenacity of two manufacturers, Olivier and Bruno Toulemonde, who bought it in 2007. In collusion with Frédérique Crestin-Billet, all the packaging was revised and new products created.

Even if the brand has a particular connotation at present, the brand Fil au Chinois is very old: it dates from the 19th century, a time when orientalism was very much in fashion. This vintage formulation “Au Chinois” signifies simply “illustrated by a Chinaman”.

Our Fil Au Chinois all purpose sewing thread is a made of polyester. For those who wish to know what they are using, polyester is a plastic material obtained by chemical synthesis. It was patented by two English chemists, Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson, in 1941, but the product was made public in 1946 due to wartime secrecy restrictions. Each country developped their own version, thus in the UK ICI produced Terylene, Dupont produced Dacron in the USA and Rhone-Poulenc brought out the French version, Tergal.