Historically, the idea of a fabric made from spider silk that is strong enough to withstand extreme forces such as being hit by bullets, but soft and comfortable enough to be worn as normal, everyday clothes has been a dream for centuries, but few have been able to produce it until very recently.In the early 1700's, the first recorded use of spider silk was by Francois-Xavier Bon de Saint Hilaire, a Frenchman who was successfully able to harvest enough silk directly from spiders to produce gloves, socks, and even a full suit for his king, Louis XIV. It was said that he would go out and gather hundreds of spiders at a time and store them in crates only to return and find only a few left due to the fact that spiders have a tendency to eat each other when placed in close proximity.

A little over one hundred years later, a Spaniard working in Italy named Raimondo de Termeyer was able to produce a pair of stockings and a shawl for Emperor Napoleon and his then wife Empress Josephine. He was able to do this by using a machine that he invented that would immobilize the spider and remove the silk without harming the spider.In the late 1800's, a French Jesuit missionary named Jacob Paul Camboué who lived in Madagascar began experimenting with extracting silk from spiders. He later teamed up with another Frenchman who went by Mr. Nogué and, inspired by Termeyer's design, created a hand powered machine capable of extracting silk from up to 24 spiders simultaneously and combining it into one continuous strand. Using this machine, the team was able to create a set of bed hangings which was on display at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.