Halas Lace- The Hungarian Jewel

Sandwiched near the lacemaking centers of Italy and Austria it was only natural that the lacemaking tradition would flourish in Hungary. But the road was rocky in the early days of lacemaking, due to the 150 years of Turkish domination of the area. As with most lace making countries in Europe, the influence of Italian lacemaking and the demand for lace among the wealthy, especially in France, led war torn Hungry to find a source of income from lacemaking.

Until the French revolution the most popular lace in Hungary was bobbin lace made in the Genoese fashion. It consisted of a ribbon of toile (clothwork) that bent and turned it's way into a continuous design across the lace. The ribbons were connected by either the sewing method or with réseau (mesh ground) which gave the appearance of lace inlay.

Lacemaking in Hungary declined after the French revolution and never fully recovered before the advent of machine lace. But the desire of beauty and handcrafts never left the people of Hungary and at the turn of the century (1902), when Europe was consumed with the excitement of the new artistic movement, a Hungarian designer, along with the skilled hands of his mother and her friends, developed a new form of lace in the farming town of Kiskunhalas, a hundred miles south of Budapest. Using few tools (unlike the large number of bobbins, pins and a pillow needed for bobbin lace), the new lace was worked with only a needle and thread over a paper pattern. Their first efforts were well received at their first exhibit at Christmas-time that first year. Both the public and the press took notice.

Shortly after a new member, the gifted embroiderer Maria Markovits, was added to the group of lacemakers and under her skilled hands the new lace took shape. The art nouveau style, which was becoming popular at the time was incorporated into the design and contributed to the appreciation of this new style of lace. The unusual combination of weaving and the traditional techniques of needlelace gave this lace its unique flavor. Due to the language barrier of imported books these industrious women had to devise their own method to accomplish the desired result.

The areas of clothwork give the viewer at first glance, the feeling that the lace was derived from a cutwork of woven fabric or a bobbin lace clothwork stitch. But upon closer inspection it is detected that the extremely fine woven linen is worked with a needle. Their technique was wholly original.

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