FINE LACES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21624, 9 April 1940, Page 10

FINE LACES

TRAGEDY BEHIND THE MAKING There is a story of tragedy behind the exquisite old laces that have survived till to-day—stories of thousands of women who became blind at 20 and of little children whose health was broken for life through sitting in damp cellars to keep the fine threads from breaking. To-dav women have developed a keen interest in the making of it for the delection of their spare time, but it is doubtful whether they will ever produce anything as lovely as. say, the fine old Brussels lace. Actually, there are about six different kinds of lace called Brussels, and some of them are needlepoint. Point d'Alencon is generally considered the greatest of the French needle-point laces. It originated as an imitationWof the famous Venetian point, but when the French workers and designers came to copy the Venetian lace they worked their own characteristics of taste into it and formed a new and lovely style. All that w’as long ago in the hey-day of lacemaking, during the reign of Louis XIV of France. His Prime Minister, Colbert, selected a Madame Gilbert in 1665, and she, with 30 forewomen from Venice, and an advance of 50.000 crowns, started lace-making in his chateau at Lonray, near Alencon. It was destined to originate one of the most widely-known laces in the w r orlcf Madame Gilbert took her lace to Paris to show the King. He was enraptured and commanded the Court to wear it. so making the fortune of the town of Alencon. Lace-makers, encouraged by the success of Alencon, sprang up and flourished all over France, various styles developed, and a vast industry survives to this day.

Machine-made copies of the handmade are available to the humblest, and in New Zealand we can buy our Alencon for about a shilling a yard. But compare the hand-made with the machine-made. Take a magnifying glass and look at that minute fabricall made of tiny needle stitches. We can scarcely believe that human eyes and hands ever w r ent to the shaping of it, and it is easy to realise that thousands of women turned blind at 20 and that little children of 10 and 12, sitting in damp cellars to keep the fine threads from breaking, should have their health broken for life. That the French laces followed the Italian is generally conceded. Flanders lace-makers like to say that they were the first lace-makers in the world. Certainly, it is the Venetian laces which were earliest to achieve fame by being extra marvellous in workmanship. Rose point is the peak point, and reticella was a Greek lace, Italy gave it fame and developed it as the forerunner of needlepoint. Coralline lace is similar to rose point. Legend has it that a sailor from the Southern Seas brought home to his betrothed a bunch of the coralline seaweed; the girl worker in needle-point, struck by the graceful nature of the seaweed, imitated it with her needle and achieved a lace pattern decorated with bars and picots which is usually known as a guipure lace. There is a piece of Honiton guipre which shows this guipure style in design. Then there is the “baby” lace and tiny edgings and insertions made by cottagers in England. “Bucks” and “Beds” they are called, after the counties. “Cat’s face” one pattern is dubbed, not because it looks like the face of a cat, but because Queen Catherine of Aragon, or “Cath.,” introduced it into England. But you may quarrel with an historian if you like and say, as you look at a sample, “But it does look like a cat’s face!”