5000 insect wings to make such a beautiful skirt.

Warning: There are pictures of insects in this article (but it is quite handsome).

Last year, in 65438+February, I saw an exhibition (V&; Exhibition planned by Hall A-"Fashion originates from nature". The exhibition exhibited more than 400 global fashion treasures, all related to nature. The exhibition discusses how fashion draws inspiration from nature, its influence on nature, and how design can promote consumption change, encourage human beings to live in harmony with nature and advocate a more sustainable lifestyle.

In the exhibition, one exhibit is particularly eye-catching. This is a 1868 British dress skirt, made of 5,000 wings of Sternocera aequisignata with green dots embedded in the material by embroidery technology. On the plain white cloth, the beetle's sheath wings are like natural gems, which glow in various colors under the refraction of light. This is similar to the sequin design of some clothes now, but the materials used are different.

Gorgeous dresses are decorated with beetle's sphinxes.

The fashion trend of this beetle skirt in Britain originated from India. In the Mughal Empire from16th century to19th century, Indian royalty and nobles would wear clothes decorated with beetle wings, and they would also use beetle wings on hats, shawls and belts. These clothes later became the collections of many museums.

/kloc-At the end of 0/8, this fashion was introduced to Europe, and many clothing manufacturers began to imitate Indian-style beetles to decorate their clothes. To make this kind of clothes, you need to import a large number of Coleoptera from India. Because most parts of India belong to tropical monsoon climate, it is a paradise for insects, and Giddens is often used for decoration. Europe doesn't have this climate advantage, so it can only be imported from India (Calendar Niang: Although "dung beetles of India" is a joke in the traditional cross talk "Linking a Doll", dung beetles exported from India really exists ...) 1860, the number of COLEOPTERA imported from Britain reached as high as 25,000 per batch.

The patterns on the skirt are all made up of fragments of beetle wings | Three butterflies |

This kind of beetle skirt is troublesome to make and wear, and it needs to wear complicated bottoming clothes to put it on the outermost layer. Although this complicated and expensive Beatles dress is a symbol of status, it has not become popular in the upper class of Europe due to some inherent defects. Although the beetle's sheath wings are strong, they are fragile, and it is even difficult to sit down. They are only suitable for dances and other occasions, and they are difficult to clean, so they quickly faded out of the fashion stage.

Aside from fashion, let's go back to Gideon himself. Chitin is a kind of beetle, belonging to COLEOPTERA chitin family in insect taxonomy. There are about 15000 kinds of chitin known in the world, and there are about 600 kinds in China. They are mainly produced in the tropics and are representative insects of tropical humid forests.

This kind of insect is called Gem Beetle in English, literally translated as Gem Beetle, because their COLEOPTERA insects often have strong metallic colors and diverse patterns. Gideon, like other beetles, has two pairs of wings, the front one is hard and beautiful, and the back one is soft and film-forming, shrinking under Coleoptera.

Various GEM | Michael Schell/Wiki Sharing

In many tropical areas, Japanese lip fish has long been used as an ornament by local people. In addition to clothing, Japanese lip perch is also made into specimens, necklaces and earrings, or decorated as patches on clothes, jewelry boxes and other handicrafts and works of art. Today, the fish is still a source of inspiration and creative materials for some artists.

The sphingolipids of Chitin and other beautiful beetles have inherent advantages when used as decorations, which is related to their color forming principle. In nature, there are two kinds of biological colors, one is pigment color, also known as chemical color; The other is structural color, also known as physical color.

Sandfly | Lukas Jonaitis/ Wikisharing

The disadvantage of paint color is its unstable nature. If you have made insect specimens, you will find that some insect specimens will gradually change from bright green to yellow-white after a period of time, which is the change of pigment color.

The COLEOPTERA of Gideon belongs to structural color, which is produced by physical structure and will not fade. The reason why there is structural color is that the wax layer, engraved points, grooves and other fine structures on the coleoptile wings of beetles are equivalent to the wavelength of light, and the incident light is reflected to a specific wavelength and direction through interference, diffraction and scattering, thus producing colorful colors. In short, there are complex and subtle structures in COLEOPTERA, and what we see is the color of light reflection in these structures, which is varied and colorful.

Chitin worm named Anthaxia hungarica | Jean gadeyne/Wikimedia Commons

Contrary to the beautiful appearance of adults, beetle larvae are not very attractive. It is a big-headed carnivorous insect, which is similar to the larva of longicorn beetle. Medium and large larvae live between the phloem and xylem of trees, swimming in the wood for food, leaving a winding tunnel full of insect droppings. Larvae grow up after molting several times, then pupate, and the pupae emerge as adults and move out of the forest.

Agrilus planipennis found in a pile of firewood | Susan Green House/California Bureau of Fishing and Hunting

Many chitin insects are harmful in agricultural and forestry production. Larvae eating trees will lead to bark bursting and branches dying, commonly known as "skin-breaking insects". Adults eat leaves, which leads to the loss of leaves and affects plant growth. But the advantages and disadvantages are also relative to human beings, and these situations only occur in artificially modified environments. In the virgin forest with complete ecosystem, beetles will not harm the environment.

This article is from the species calendar, welcome to forward it.

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