The History of Sequins Fabrics
When we think of sequins, the first thing that comes to mind is usually New Year’s Eve—a holiday when people venture out in their most shimmery separates to celebrate the coming year amid even shinier decorations. Sometimes, this can verge on overkill, but as we’ve shown before, there’s a way to wear sequins that won’t render you a cliché. What we don’t think about when we think of sequins is their history—as in, where on Earth did these shiny little guys sprinkled throughout our wardrobes come from? Was Michael Jackson—a major arbiter of the style—responsible? Or, perhaps, a ’70s/’80s-era designer? Not even close, actually! We dug around for the answer, and what we found was entirely unexpected: Sequins can be traced all the way back to the one and only King Tut, who was alive from 1341 to 1323 B.C. According to Smithsonian magazine, when Tut’s tomb was discovered in 1922, his garments were covered in “gold sequin-like disks.” Historians belie...