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| Late 16th century lace |
I spent last weekend in France and made a visit to the excellent Calais museum on the history of lace, the Cite Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode de Calais. Calais is to French lace what Nottingham is to English lace, the place that saw the mechanisation of lace-making; in fact many of the machines in the Calais museum were made in Nottingham.
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| 1630s lace |
The museum is extremely well laid out and easy to follow, even if you don’t speak French very well, just remember dentelle a fuseaux is bobbin lace, and dentelle a l’aiguille is needle lace, most labels are in both languages. The museum starts with two short videos, side by side, of the two techniques. The creation of a small leaf motif in needle lace is shown from start to finish, as is the creation of a narrow piece of bobbin lace.
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| Mid 17th century |
There is some beautiful reticella work, and examples of 16thand 17th century bobbin and needle made laces. One thing I particularly liked was the way in which they placed an image of someone wearing lace with original lace of a similar design, as in the examples I show here.
The museum concentrates on the history of lace in France, so there is much Alencon, Argentan, Chantilly, etc., but there are also Flemish and Italian laces in the collection.
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| Late 17th century |
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| 18th century |
Later on, when you get into the 18th century, the museum has original garments to add to the display of lace, and by the time you reach the mechanisation of lace in the 19th century they are putting together lace, clothing and illustrations from paintings, fashion magazines and photographs. The Calais lace industry supposedly started after the Napoleonic Wars, when in 1816 a Nottingham lace maker, Robert Webster, supposedly smuggled a lace machine into France.
The twentieth century gallery contains a collection of both underwear, and garments that include lace in their design. The couturiers represented include Paquin, Paco Rabane, Yves St. Laurent, and many others.
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| Display of bits of the lace making machines |
Finally a very Joseph Wright of Derby style photo of left to right, Ann, Garth, myself and Graham, examining a case of 17th century lace.
