The Pilkington Museum in St. Helens (near Liverpool) had floor-to-ceiling curtains made of woven glass. It was heavy stuff, and the room was very tall; it must have taken some serious machinery to get them hung.
Pilkingtons is the company that developed and patented float glass, the replacement for plate glass. I think they were acquired by Corning.
Hmmm. Wikipedia agrees with you that it's a solid. But the explanation of why it's not a fluid is handwavey; their strongest claim seems to be that experiments show that it doesn't flow on any reasonable timescale. But presumably that's at standard temperature and pressure; the article doesn't mention the conditions.
Like, glass is definitely liquid if you get it hot enough. But it doesn't have a melting point; there's no discernible transition from hot glass to cold glass.
Yes, it doesn't have a melting point because the molecules slowly fall apart as glass gets heated; the hotter it gets, the liquider it gets (up to a specific level).
Glass at room temprature has enough bonds to stay solid, though.
I'd make a guess that synthetic fibres - Rayon (1905), then Nylon, Polyester and Acrylics (1940's) offered some of the same properties and where vastly cheaper and more practical
Space suits are actually made from teflon coated glass fibers[0]. It's one reason why space suits are distinctively white and used because it's fire resistant.
I get that this is a historical, not scientific article, but its strange that they didn't mention the health concerns with glass fibers (possibly carcinogenic). "A dress made out of glass" sounds very steampunk.
I wouldn't worry about that. If you're going to worry about something, you should probably worry about the radium we added to make them glow in the dark!
Pilkingtons is the company that developed and patented float glass, the replacement for plate glass. I think they were acquired by Corning.