Not your mama’s lace
By Never teh BrideSo, the AP tells me that lace is back in for brides. The question weighing on my mind, however, is whether it was ever really “out.” Sure, you didn’t see a lot of lace gracing gowns, but those who dreamed of walking down the aisle in lace were not denied their pleasure. Luxury lingerie designer Claire Pettibone knows lace and it shows in this Chantilly lace and silk charmeuse empire silhouette gown.
And there’s more at her web site, which features a limited selection of gorgeous gowns embellished with beautiful lace!
From the AP article:
The classic white lace-adorned bridal gown emerged centuries ago, supposedly first in France, on Anne of Brittany, when she married Louis XII in 1499. It later was popularized by Britain’s Queen Victoria, in the mid-19th century, and has been a favorite ever since.
As a fabric, designers says, delicate lace is surprisingly adaptable. It can be used in a classic silhouette — Badgley Mischka’s cap-sleeve gown in sheer Chantilly lace, for example, with a chiseled bodice and lace godets at the hem to give the dress volume — or something edgier: perhaps designer Melissa Sweet’s “patchwork” lace dress, a collage of seven kinds of lace.
Lace became standard in bridal attire in the 19th century when it was wildly popular in all of fashion, according to Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.
“People were crazy for lace. … People really knew their lace. You could tell handmade lace from machine-made lace. That’s all gotten blurry now,” Steele says.
The popularity of machine-made lace — no matter how good it was — might have led to lace’s decline around the turn of the 20th century by degrading its value.
In addition, fashion moves in cycles; while lace was part of the “delicate and peekaboo aesthetic” of the 19th century, the 20th century quickly embraced a more revealing look, eschewing lace for bare skin. And fewer people had maids and servants to hand wash the lace, Steele says, leading it to fall further out of favor.
Maybe this means a touch of modesty is coming back into fashion? One can only hope.
December 19th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
The popularity of lace in the nineteenth century was largely BECAUSE machine made lace was invented. Suddenly most people could afford at least a bit of lace as opposed to the days when it was entirely hand-made. Before that, a piece of lace might be handed down for generations because it was so very valuable.
Queen Victoria’s wedding lace, for instance, was ordered in an effort to shore up the English lacemaking industry in the Devon area (there were several different lacemaking industries throughout the British Isles, each of which specialized in a different style). In fact, it’s widely believed now that the suite was ordered well before Victoria proposed to Albert and she decided to use the lace she was already having made. The set (deep skirt ruffle, narrow sleeve ruffles, veil, fichu) was worn by Victoria every year on her wedding anniversary, and to the weddings of all but one of her children: Princess Beatrice was allowed to wear it with her wedding gown.
It’s not that the difference is difficult to tell now, because machine-made laces were actually a lot more like the hand-made product toward the end of the nineteenth century…it’s just that most people now haven’t seen hand-made lace and don’t know what to look for.
Hand-made or machine-made, lace can be a fabulous trim for a wedding gown. And as you say, NtB, it’s never completely out of style!
December 19th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I studied archaeology in grad school, and I remember learning that you can tell a truly rich society not by its luxury goods, as the rich are always with us, but by the presence of cheaper imitations of those luxury goods, such as faux ivory decorating furniture, and brass jewelry with paste gems. It makes sense–there are always elites who possess luxuries, but a truly wealthy society has a middle class (or the equivalent) with some money to burn. They might not have been able to afford real gold and gems, but they did their best to look as if they could!
That said, I’m planning on wearing a lace gown for my (middle-class) June 2007 wedding. I’m not sure yet if it will be all-over lace, but I love the look. I’ll likely be buying it next week, I’ll let you all know! It will not be a Claire Pettibone, though. Much as I love her designs, and the ones in the same vein by Jenny Packham, I’m just not enough of an elite at heart to spend that much on a dress for one day.
December 19th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
I’m looking forward to seeing your choice, Pencils!