What does Kate Know?
The marriage of Prince William to Catherine Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge, brought lace back into the minds of fashion designers as well as interior designers.
Kate's exquisite wedding gown featured an intricate lace appliqué on the bodice and sleeves. Individual flowers were hand cut from lace and hand-engineered onto the ivory silk tulle dress to create the design, which features rose, thistle, daffodil, and shamrocks on it, a nod to national flowers of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
Official statements noted that she wished to combine tradition and modernity. When in doubt, do what Kate and her designer Sarah Burton did: go classic with meaningful details. Feel free to add your own modern twist to the mix to make your home truly your own.
And Now For the Backstory....
The birthplaces of lace-making are generally recognized as Flanders (in northern Belgium) and Italy.
What makes lace unique is not only that it's an ornamental textile but that it's created independently from a backing fabric. It starts out as a thread that is then looped, twisted or braided to other threads. Originally lace was made of linen, silk, cotton or metallic threads of gold, silver and copper, and even human hair.
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Princess Grace 1956 |
At the time of its origin in the 15th century, lace was one of the greatest extravagances. It was handmade and extremely expensive. Social status could be determined by the quality and complexity of lace that was worn. In some regions only people above a certain rank were allowed to wear lace and then only of a certain width according to their status.
Inspectors who obviously had too much time on their hands, were positioned at city gates and if someone of a low rank tried to enter the city wearing lace which was considered to be too rich for them, their lace was either trimmed down with scissors or burned. A little harsh we think.
Talk about stimulating the economy.... as the art of lacemaking caught on, it provided a much needed livelihood for thousands of workers and formed a huge portion of the revenue for many nations throughout Europe.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Minister of Finance for King Louis XIV of France, was so disturbed by the amount of money being spent to import lace that he began to encourage and develop the lace making industry at home. The French then persuaded the best lace makers from Italy and Belgium to settle in France and set up schools in the areas of Alencon, Arras and Sedan to teach the peasants the art of lace making.
