Viscose and cellophane are materials derived from the same chemical, nitrocellulose, an artificial derivative of a natural polymer. Their story splits into two autonomous narratives, for the fiber which became an inexpensive silk substitute, known as rayon; and for the transparent film, cellophane. Hilaire de Chardonnet, the original inventor, was educated at the École polytechnique, and interacted with Louis Pasteur in the 1860s, when the latter was investigating silkworms. Chardonnet set-up a viscose-manufacturing plant in Hungary. During the 1870s and 1880s, Jules Verne became obsessed with collodion, the mother liquor from which viscose fibers were spun, a multi-faceted miracle material for the novelist. I shall also sketch a parallel between the two derivatives, nitorocellulose, on one hand, cellulose acetate, on the other, to which we owe the birth and blooming of cinematography. Some of the other aspects of the viscose story include the dilemma of manufacturers in Lyon, faced with the rivalry between their traditional silk trade and the novel silk substitute; the manufacture of artificial polymers —celluloid and bakelite were others, at the turn of the twentieth century — in the contexts of the second industrial revolution in France and of transatlantic interactions; commercialization of artefacts from such polymers in the newly opened department stores, of which Boucicaut’s Au Bon Marché in Paris — featured in Zola’s novel Au Bonheur des Dames — was a resounding pioneering success. In addition, my family history — in Grenoble, during World War II and the German occupation, when my mother organized the Hungarian female workers in the local viscose manufacturing plant — intersected the history of this artificial fiber. Back to the bench? Cellophane was a daughter invention, perfected in 1908 by Jacques Edwin Brandenberger, a Swiss textile engineer. He had sought for several years a transparent packaging material. By 1908, Brandenberger developed the first machine for the manufacture of transparent sheets of derivatized cellulose. By 1912, Brandenberger was making a saleable thin flexible film, used initially in gas masks. After World War I, a company was set-up to manufacture and commercialize cellohane. In 1923, DuPont acquired the license for North and Cental America. A DuPont scientist, William Hale Church, and a team of researchers figured out how to make cellophane film moisture-proof, launching its use in food packaging.