Aerial Silks emerged in the late 20th century during the rise of contemporary circus. A key figure in its development is André Simard, a former gymnast and acrobat who worked with Cirque du Soleil. Simard is often credited with helping refine and popularise the apparatus after experimenting with fabric suspended from the ceiling as a training and performance tool. He reportedly discovered that long pieces of fabric could allow performers to wrap, lock, and suspend themselves safely, opening the door to a whole new aerial vocabulary.

Some say that Aerial Silks officially begun being recognized after the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in 1995 where Isabelle Vaudelle (who had studied in the same school as André Simard) performed a ground-breaking new Aerial Silks act that marked the public debut of Silks as a circus specialty in its own right.