---
title: "Paillette"
description: "A paillette is the French word for a sequin, now often used for a larger, flatter disc sewn to cloth."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/paillette
published: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Paillette

*A paillette is the French word for a sequin, now often used for a larger, flatter disc sewn to cloth.*

Paillette is the French word for a sequin, and in English it is often used for a larger, flatter disc than the ordinary [sequin](https://teazle.art/glossary/sequin.md). Usage varies: some sources treat the words as interchangeable, others keep *paillette* for big, non-faceted discs.

## How do museums use the word?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art records a Russian [court robe of about 1900](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/85436) as silk, metallic threads and paillettes, and uses the same word for discs on eighteenth-century fans and fragments, where other collections might say [spangles](https://teazle.art/glossary/spangle.md). Catalog vocabulary is not standardized, so read the object, not the label.

## Where does the idea come from?

[Wikipedia's summary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequin) lists *paillette* with *spangle* and *diamanté* among the names for sequins, and notes that the words are sometimes interchangeable and sometimes not. The more consistent historical distinction is between metal discs sewn to cloth and the coin that gave sequins their name, the [zecchino](https://teazle.art/glossary/zecchino.md).


## Sources

1. [Court robe, Russian, ca. 1900, 1977.398a–c](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/85436). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2. [Terminology: Sequins vs. Spangles (& their history in fashion)](https://thedreamstress.com/2017/02/terminology-sequins-vs-spangles-their-history-in-fashion/). The Dreamstress
3. [Sequin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequin). Wikipedia

Canonical: https://teazle.art/glossary/paillette