Fabrics and Textiles: Lace

Prada, AW08, Lookbook.

There are certain areas of fashion design that are often summarised together under an umbrella term, but if you take the time and have the interest you will realise that some of these areas open up into many little fragmented pockets of information. This seems to especially be the case with textiles which, almost like a language dialect, can be steeped in tradition and defined by small regional and historical quirks.

Lace is definitely one such area which can suddenly open up once you realise just how many types of lace there are, and become aware of the variety of techniques which have been used to create this most fragile of textiles.

Prada, AW08, Lookbook.

Below are just a few quick images of different types of lace and lace making techniques. Predominantly, they seem to have evolved along the lines of two different approaches. The first is by starting with a base cloth and removing threads to leave gaps, with the edges of these gaps then being secured by tiny stitches, and small web-like threads are also created to help bridge these gaps. The second approach is to start without a base cloth and to build the lace with basically just a needle and thread. Or a variety of different pins and thread holders (called bobbins) as is depicted in the image below.

This really is just a taster of a few of the more well known types of laces, but really this is an area which could be expanded out to many more posts about individual types of lace and their particular histories and techniques.

There are also a couple of videos on this site about the techniques of lace making, Virtual Museum of Textile Art».