REAL OLD LACE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20077, 6 April 1935, Page 11

REAL OLD LACE

TREASURED IN AMERICA It is the American woman who goes in now for collecting fine specimens of old lace, and really understands and appreciates the stitches characteristic of different districts, writes H. Pearl Adam in “The Observer.” After all, she has not had it handed down to her through her family, and still looks upon it as a very wonderful thing. Undoubtedly it is. Of all the luxury arts invented and practised by men, lace making is probably the most delicate and the most refined. It is a pity that our Englishwomen should lose their understanding of and love for anything so beautiful. Fashion will probably bring it back before long, and then there will be a different tale to tell. Princess Marina’s veil may do quite a good deal towards bringing back real lace into favour.

However, the present-day girl is not interested in needlework, so she cannot appreciate the work and the artistry that went into the making of real lace. She is just as well satisfied with the machine-made kind, and doesn’t know the difference in design or workmanship. In this she loses a very great pleasure. The drawer or box in which

the lace is stored affords to the understanding owner a pleasure every whit as great as that which a miser feels in contemplating his gold, and infinitely more desirable, in that she can take it out and wear it without depreciating it, without losing it, and without indulging her soul in a pleasure so base as that of money grabbing. The Old Days The bridal outfit of lace in old days consisted of a square veil, which was worn over the face, but brides nowadays are too easily contented with a square or length of tulle or embroidered net. The over-the-face veil went out just about the time of the war, when, according to crabbed uncles and aunts, modesty also became dowdy. One can hardly understand why brides should disdain anything so beautiful as a lace veil. When Princess Stephanie of Belgium was married about fifty years ago, she wore a square of lace which had taken seven or eight years to make. Marie Antoinette was married in Point d’Alencon, which had been many a long year in the making, but this is rather an unhappy example to cite.

There is in existence a wedding veil 200 years old, of Brussels applique. It is five feet square. The net was made by hand in narrow -strips, and the veil was paid for according to the number of shillings which could be placed along the strip. This was all made by hand, appliqued with tiny flowers and a strengthening border. It is only worth a fifth to-day of its actual value, because of the sluihp in the demand for old lace.

• Fifty years ago the great ladies of England and France would not be seen without lace, nor be satisfied with anything but the real article. Times have changed since the days when a veil was sent to Princess Mary, daughter of George 111, in an enormous wrapping, bearing the injunction: “By the coach. May 23, 1816. Not to be bent, and delivered immediately. Keep dry.” It is a thousand pities that the many uses to which real lace can be put

should be neglected, and one is locking forward to the return of so very becoming and elegant a fashion. If Queen Mary would express her own liking for real lace by wearing it, the day of that return would be nearer.