Suzhou Silk Museum staff members Chen Yanlu (L) and Meng Xiaochou arrange a silk garment dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, May 18, 2025. Restoration of this cultural relic has been ongoing for more than three months.

Silk cultural relics are hard to preserve and prone to suffer from conditions such as fragmentation, decay, embrittlement and fading. The job of a silk restorer is to bring such cultural relics back to life with the help of modern technology and traditional craftsmanship.

For Suzhou Silk Museum staff member Chen Yanlu and her colleagues, the restoration of cultural relics means restoring their original appearance as much as possible, while reserving the room for future reprocessing if more refined techniques appear in the future. (Xinhua/Li Bo)

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Suzhou Silk Museum staff members Chen Yanlu (L) and Meng Xiaochou arrange a silk garment dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, May 18, 2025. Restoration of this cultural relic has been ongoing for more than three months. (Xinhua/Li Bo)

Suzhou Silk Museum staff member Chen Yanlu uses a magnet to flatten a silk cultural clothing against an iron workbench in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, May 18, 2025. (Xinhua/Li Bo)