HISTORY OE LACE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21380, 24 June 1939, Page 11

HISTORY OE LACE

INSPIRED BY SPIDER-WEBS "Stitches in the air” was the lovely Italian name for lace, but the romance of- the beautiful fabric is a homely one. Lace came from the cottage, the | tiny farm, made by women who work- I ed in the fields and were inspired by the web of the spider and the wild | flowers. The Greeks could not have known lace; otherwise they would have invented a legend worthy of the "stitches in the air.” and by the time true lace came into being its commercial value was so great that its poetic aspect was not noticed. It arrived in England from Flanders and France, and was first mentioned in the State accounts of the coronation of Richard 111 and his Queen, Anne of Warwick. Anne was obliged to get her robes in a hurry, and only two days before the ceremony she was able to buy her dress and her “mantil lace of white silk.” Whether the cloak was lace as we know it or darned netting or fine white silk braid entwined to make a pattern we cannot tell, but the name was established. Gold and silver braid, the ancestor of lace, had been brought to Europe by the Crusaders, and to-day, when it is used on uniforms, it is still called lace; but it was not until the end of the Middle Ages that the fabric was made by hand with a needle from linen thread. The exquisite linen thread lace took Europe by storm; it was often worth more than its weight in gold, and there was not enough to go round. Kings and queens, princes and nobles, clamoured for it. and in the stables of Flanders, women worked in semidarkness to supply it, for light was supposed to damage the threads. The thread had to be slightly damp, and the stable was the best place for the work, because the warm breath of the cattle supplied just the necessary moisture. No thread equalled that made in Flanders, and London merchants paid four pounds for one ounce of thread, which, when made into lace, was worth 43 pounds. Indeed, such fabulous sums of money were paid for lace that its importation was prohibited for a time, though it was worn at Court during Elizabeth’s reign. We also know that Charles I wore parchment lace on his satin night caps. It was made by twisting fine ; silk or gold threads round little strips of parchment, but, beautiful though it was, it never rivalled linen thread lace. By degrees lace began to find its way into England from Valenciennes, Mechlin, and Brussels, and fortunes were paid for a pair of cuffs or a collar. Men and women vied with one another in the display, and when the lace frills came into fashion both sexes sold their jewels in order to buy them I and gave orders which took years to execute. It was in 1768 that a stocking knitter of Nottingham, after studying his wife’s headdress, manufactured lace on his stocking frame, and soon afterwards cotton lace was made, and “stitches in the air” came gradually within the reach of everybody.