chiffon

In Old French, chiffe meant a rag or scrap of poor-quality cloth. The diminutive chiffon -- a little rag -- carried the same lowly connotation. A chiffonnier was a ragpicker, one of the poorest workers in Paris, who collected discarded fabric scraps from the streets to resell. The word sat at the bottom of the textile vocabulary for centuries.

Silk weavers in France began producing an extremely sheer, lightweight fabric in the early 1700s. How the name chiffon migrated from worthless rags to gossamer silk is unclear, but the logic may have been ironic: the fabric was so thin, so insubstantial, that it seemed barely there -- like a rag of nothing. By the 1750s, chiffon had acquired its modern meaning in French fashion vocabulary.

Madeleine Vionnet, the Parisian couturière who revolutionized dressmaking in the 1920s, made chiffon her signature fabric. She cut it on the bias, letting it drape and cling to the body in ways that stiffer fabrics could not. Vionnet's chiffon gowns were architectural -- gravity was a design element. The rag had become the most sophisticated material in haute couture.

Modern chiffon is made from silk, nylon, or polyester, and it remains a staple of eveningwear and bridal fashion. The word has also entered cooking vocabulary: chiffon cake, invented in 1927 by Harry Baker, a Los Angeles insurance salesman, is named for its airy, light texture. From ragpickers' scraps to wedding veils to cake, the word has risen through every social register the language offers.