Handheld followers have been round for hundreds of years, with completely different cultures around the globe every producing their very own variations. The folding fan is the commonest iteration right now and was invented across the eighth century in Japan, in keeping with Aisla Hendry, curator on the Fan Museum in London. Folding followers weren’t delivered to Europe till the sixteenth century. “They first are available by way of Italy, after which, they get popularized by Catherine de Medici,” Hendry explains, including that afterward France, Spain, and Nice Britain additionally adopted the accent. However there has additionally been proof that followers have been in use in a number of civilizations throughout Africa, South America, and North America earlier than the colonial interval.