Parfilage (in French pronounced as /paʁ.fi.laʒ/, "unravelling")[1] was a fashionable pastime among women at the Versailles in the 1760s and 1770s.[2] While most forms of ladies' handwork involved making something, parfilage was the opposite: women spent their time unraveling gold and silver braid, lace, or epaulets. As the fad grew – Grimm's Correspondence littéraire referred to a "furor" for it in winter 1773[3] – ornaments were made and sold solely for the purpose of being unmade. Ladies carried small sacks with them for the gold and silver threads they had salvaged. Taken to a goldsmith, the thread could be melted down and made into bullion. In Britain, parfilage was sometimes known as "drizzling."[4] [5]