19th century Lace for the Common Man

Other countries were developing bolder and faster made laces that could be worked up more quickly and capture the ever-growing trade for souvenir lace. Many women of means would travel through Europe buying samples of lace wherever they traveled and putting together lacy items for their toilette. Brugge lace was one of these. It is a bolder version of Duchesse and Honiton lace, thus it can be made more quickly. The city of Brugge Belgium is today one of the last existing "lace Centers" of Europe along with Burano Italy and tourist still flock there to experience the lure of lace.

The dominating force in lace after the invention of machine made netting was the ability to make lace faster and less costly. Many countries banned the import of the "English Net" but just as lace itself was banned in pervious centuries, and still made it to those who demanded it, now machine netting also made it into the hands of lacemakers who wanted to compete and earn a living. Eventually Switzerland also developed lace making machines and the "old" days of lace "for the rich only" ended. The net machine gave way to more elaborate machines and all types of lace were made faster and cheaper. Now everyone could afford some type of lace. For a while it seemed, the skill of lace making by hand would die out, but lucky for us there were still persons of privilege who could afford "real" lace and the knowledge was not lost. In fact collecting "real lace" increased tremendously during the 19th century by the 'nuveau riche" of America and lucky for us it preserved many of the old laces that might otherwise be lost to us today.

LINKS

Leavers Machine lace-http://www.redestb.es/centralencajera/in...

19th Century Lace-http://www.costumes.org/pages/19thlace.h...

Look for the next article about Twentieth Century Lace.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic