Bobbinet or genuine tulle is a specific type of tulle netting which has been made in the United Kingdom since the invention of the bobbinet machine in 1806 by John Heathcoat. John Heathcoat coined the term "bobbin net", or bobbinet as it is spelled today, to distinguish his machine-made tulle from the hand-made "pillow lace", called so because of the pillow used to produce it. Machines based on his original designs are still in operation today producing fabrics in Perry Street, Chard, Somerset, UK.

The forerunner of bobbinet tulle was lace. Lace has been produced for a long time, made in tedious hand labour with thin thread and needles or bobbins. The first lace was basically made by intertwining and knotting the thread artfully. It was not until 1500, however, that more elaborate lace could be produced. Generally speaking, lace is based on a net ground. Demands rose quickly and so net-like ground for lace was being produced in special manufactures around 1700. By the end of the 18th century, people tried to produce the net ground mechanically. In 1765 they managed to create a tulle-like fabric on a so-called stocking framework. It took, however, some more years until the first real tulle could be produced mechanically. Bobbinet machines were finally invented in 1807 by John Heathcoat. He studied the hand movements of manual lace makers and reproduced them in the roller-locker machine. The smooth, unpatterned tulle produced on these machines was on a par with real, hand-made lace net. Heathcoat’s bobbinet machine is so ingeniously designed that the ones used today have suffered little alteration.