Fashion embellished with jewel beetle wings

An astonishing number of materials have been used to create fashion, many of which are drawn from the animal kingdom. To learn more about some of them, we worked with colleagues at London’s Natural History Museum, exploring materials from very different sources - whales and jewel beetles - and their use in fashion.
Beetle curator Max Barclay shares specimens from his collection and talks about why jewel beetles were so popular for decorating dress, their vivid colour and how they were collected.
Find out more: www.vam.ac.uk/...

[@1hayes1]

Several decades ago, I saw a green silk chiffon fabric in a museum in India. It was probably about 200 years old and was covered in these spectacular green beetle shells. Unforgettable.

[@atzonaftaniel4798]

Wonderfull. I once saw a dress completely covered with these wings in Jaipur, India ate the Palace of the Winds.

[@michaeljaysonbanua4870]

If I just kept all the beetles I found back when I was a kid, I'll have a bunch of them now. May fave is the "salaginto". Ginto means gold so yeah it's a golden beetle.

[@coyaxx2770]

Stunning!

[@allisonjames2923]

They’re absolutely gorgeous & humans have made many beautiful creations using their wings. Just sad that the beetles are killed for them.

[@stephanberg7335]

The great thing about those wings is, that most of the elytras are waste products of the food industry nowadays as they are eaten in Laos, Cambodia etc.

[@orion8835]

Wow.

[@erly5642]

Poor beetles...

[@KateeAngel]

They are collected after they died

[@xivokv5548]

An alien species may make a costume out of human ribs and skin just to justify this beetle dress.😂

[@FelipeEspinoza]

Oh, Cruella!

[@theparanoidandroid3583]

The embroiderer must have had a strong stomach!

[@xivokv5548]

Oh please, now we bring beetles to extinction. Just wear wool. Fashion my ass.

[@systlin2596]

They're super common and traditionally you just collect the already dead beetles. Completely sustainable.

[@jameshero5755]

Cruella....