Dentelles few days ago I saw the announcement of the theme of the next edition of the Aiguille en Fete
"to be held in February in Paris
would be nice to go there, even if , I thought that in France do not fit a lot better than us in terms of Needle lace. I
occurred to me that I broke the story of needle lace at the very beginning of its splendor in France, we can see how it continued. We stayed here
.
France, second half of '600, it was decided to produce the needle laces independently, without having to import because of their exorbitant cost. You install the factories in the North, in Normandy, where they already produced lace and linen yarns suitable was available. Thus began production in Argentan, Alençon and the city of Sedan, which is located on the border with Flanders. The first
much resemble those Venetian lace, but King Louis XIV pays artists to produce new designs, typically French. Meanwhile, fashion is changing, and the king likes to keep his hair long and curly hair loose over her shoulders, they feel stiff lace the hills, so it tends to "soften", both in texture and design. In this period the French production is fairly uniform for style and technique, and is called Point de France
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| Point de France, late '600 |
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| Point de France, beginning 700 |
The court is one of the biggest clients, and there are designs inspired by its symbol of Louis XIV, the sun
In subsequent years, the fashion changes again: in the 700 dresses are decorated with a frill of lace profuzione, which apply even to the edges of the boots of men. E 'need to generate more light and soft lace. The poor use pillow lace, run faster and less expensive. Do not forget that at the time the needle laces requires the work of several people, each of which dealt only di una fase dalla lavorazione; era perciò più pratico unire le lavoratrici in manifatture, localizzate in alcune citta,per cui la produzione tende a caratterizzarsi maggiormente. Ad Argentan troviamo disegni floreali di gusto classico, con lo sfondo riempito da esagoni ben evidenti.
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| Argentan |
Il merletto di Alençon, forse il più conosciuto, ha disegni floreali di gusto spesso naturalistico, con fondo lavorato a Point d'Espagne (punto festone ritorto) con filo sottilissimo, che lo fa somigliare ad un tulle molto fine.
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| Alençon |
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| Alençon |
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| Argentan ed Alençon |
Il merletto chiamato Argentella, prodotto prevalentemente ad Alençon, ha invece un fondo occupato in buona parte da esagoni che racchiudono un cerchio, molto elaborato e caratteristico
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| Argentella |
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| Argentella |
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| In alto Argentella, in basso Argentan |
Nella città di Sedan che si trova in un'altra zona, i disegni evolvono in modo diverso, mantengono il carattere non naturalistico del punto di Venezia, con molti disegni piriformi circondati da foglie e ramages; i punti di riempimento sono molto vari e conferiscono a particular character in these lace
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| Sedan |
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| Top point de Sedan Argentan down |
The French Revolution changed everything: fashion becomes more rigorous, the unbridled luxury does not have more space, and manufacturing fell from grace as their major clients, the nobles. They know
another brief period of glory under Napoleon, which seeks above all to revive manufacturing Alençon, adapting the designs to the new fashion.
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Alençon lace depicting bees, a symbol of the Napoleonic
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'800 beginning comes the real revolution in lace : the construction of frames capable of reproducing the tulle. At this point there is no need to occupy many hours of highly specialized workers. He began the industrial production of lace.
Bibliography and images:
Bury Palliser's History of Lace-
Lefebure, et Dentelles guipures
Lefébure, Les Point de France
(scaricabili da
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/books.html )
