Tulle bi telli

Tulle-bi-telli, also known as Assuit or 'Assiut after Asyut where it is made, is a textile marrying cotton or linen mesh with small strips of metal.

The base material is bobbinet, which is a machine-made fabric made of cotton or, in older pieces, linen.

[6] The ultimate history of tulle-bi-telli and tel kirma is also connected to a technique called badla, and to khus-duzi.

[7] The earliest example of something like telli embroidery in Egypt dates to the 16th century, found on textile fragments from Qasr Ibrim.

Earlier texts potentially date telli embroidery to existing in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 11th century, referring to a "tali" fabric embroidered with gold, but also do not mention whether the metal used was strips.

[9] By the early 20th century, Assuit became the main center for tulle bi telli production, instead of it being produced throughout the Egyptian Nile Valley.

[4] Telli fabric may have been introduced to the West on a large scale during the Columbian Exposition, where a faux Cairo street was set up.

[9] Early in tulle-bi-telli's introduction to Europeans, they called it spangled mosquito netting, and it was bought to hang over hats for that very purpose.

[10] Before the popularization of electroplating, which made copper strips plated with more expensive metals available, telli and garments featuring it would have been more luxurious items, not easily afforded by poorer women.

Simultaneously, embroiderers of tulle bi telli felt free to break tradition and exercise personal creativity in making patterns.

[9] Assuit has been used in Hollywood production a large scale ions such as the 1934 Cecil B. DeMille opus Cleopatra.