During the 16th and 17th centuries, wearing lace was a statement. And that statement was a blunt one: I have wealth, taste and power, and the proof is displayed upon my person. When King Henry III of France, for example, wanted to intimidate his own Estates General (an advisory legislative body) in 1577, he turned up wearing 4,000 yards of lace.
Queen Elizabeth I owned reams of it, too: a single petticoat belonging to her had more than eight yards of silver lace worked onto it.
Laws were passed specifying who could and could not wear certain kinds. And, in the mid-1660s, the French finance minister embarked on a daring spree of industrial espionage in an effort to move the focus of the lace industry from Venice to France, largely so that Louis XIV, the Sun King, would at least be supporting French industry with his extravagant purchases.
Lace is an effective signal of privilege because it is purely decorative. It does not keep the wearer warm, dry or modestly covered, it snags with alarming ease and (particularly the traditional white kind) needs vast amounts of cleaning, pressing and starching to look its best.
Its precise origins are difficult to pin down, but it was definitely in use by the mid-16th century. It evolved from other kinds of decorative needlework including filet embroidery (which was increasingly being used to decorate the edges and seams of fine linen in the 15th century) and passementerie trimmings fashioned from braid or cord. Most lace was made with linen thread, which came from flax, an effortful crop to grow, process and spin. Other kinds were made from black silk, often used to add subtle texture to darker fabrics, or threads made from metals including gold, silver or copper, which were popular with royal courts.
Lace-making was done by women, the skills and techniques passed down through generations and among friends, so that particular geographic areas became adept at certain styles. Lace can be made using either bobbins or needles. Needle laces are built up using detached buttonhole stitches, cast between an outline of thicker threads, usually over a pattern.
What's everyone reading?
Bobbin laces are also built up over a design that is pinned to a pillow or board to keep the design taut and flat. The bobbins, each of which is wrapped around with a length of thread, are plaited, twisted, knotted or woven together over the printed motif, using pins placed in the pattern to hold the stitches being worked in place. Simple designs might need only a handful of bobbins; more complex pieces require up to 600, and a great deal of planning and expertise to complete.
Today, most lace is made by machine. Hand-lace-making persists in some places, but is no longer an assumed skill possessed by women and used to fill their idle hours. As a result, the statement that lace makes – if not its beauty – has all but disappeared.
