The depths of most people's understanding of lace is of the nosy, suburban housewife tweaking the lace curtains aside to see what the neighbours are up to.
Those dust, net horrors are but the sad, machine-made remnants of what, for 300 years, was an extraordinary fashion in the decoration of clothes and household goods. A fashion that saw the creation of some of the most exquisite treasures in the history of textiles. Treasures that, in their time, were prized above jewels or silks. Men were robbed and killed for a lace handkerchief and thieves were as ingenious as any in Gauteng today. They slunk up on coaches, slit open the leather backs and snatched the wigs from women's heads as these were festooned with costly lace. (Women were instructed to sit with their backs to the driver in order to foil criminals.)
Four layers of rouched fabrics were added to cutwork lace panels to make these exquisite window draperies.
The labour that went into making a few centimeters of lace is almost incomprehensible to us in an age of mass-production and rampant consumerism. How could anyone spend a year making a mere 600mm of lace? Yet thousands did, by the light of candles in uncomfortable places such as cow byres, where the moist warmth from the cows below kept the fine flax thread supple and prevented the hands of the lace makers from becoming stiff with cold.
A vanity table dressed in lace with antique dresser accessories arranged around a collector plate and a vintage red-velvet jewelry box.
The glorious era of lace ended with the French Revolution of 17809. Gowns were suddenly simple and untrimmed. Lace was used only for state occasions and people became puritanical about its expense and frivolity. Large collections were cast out by families to their waiting-maids. Fear of death may also have played some part in this destruction, lace being associated with aristocrats - and aristocrats with the guillotine.
A glimpse of vintage ladies' fashions ads its old-fashioned charm. Between the dresses is an antique hair-ribbon holder.
Most cast-off lace was wasted by deterioration or by cutting up and wearing out. Old pieces were worn again during the 19th century, when it became fashionable and people began to assemble collections, but the lace soon wore out and there was nothing new, or of equivalent quality, to replace it.
Serious collectors will, of course, keep their lace packed safely away, kept flat between acid-free tissue paper, mostly unseen, but there are many people who buy old lace to decorate their clothes and furnishings, knowing that they will be wearing something old and rare and quite unique.
A bouquet of dried hydrangeas and cockscomb, accented by silk flowers sits high on a wicker plant stand covered with a pink damask throw. Rich drapes of vintage lace adorns the vanity and footstool. The Oriental rug delicately complements the softly muted tones of the room.
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