The Technology That Made Fashion Possible

In the weeks before June’s couture shows, workers in European ateliers hunched over garments carefully sewing and ornamenting them with beads and other decorative flourishes, at times with little more than skilled hands and an eyed needle.

Some 40,000 years ago, a similar scene was taking place, for much the same reasons.

In a

that happened to coincide with the couture shows last month, an international team of researchers made the…