Lace stocking fronts

Stocking fronts The piece of lace shown in this article belongs to the private collection of Tess Parrish, who has kindly shared it with us. The first thing that surprises us when looking at this lace is its pointed oval shape. Afterwards, we ask ourselves the question "What is this?". Well, they are pieces of lace that were inserted in the front part of stockings and were fashionable as far back as in the days of Elizabeth I. (Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 to 1603). The lace was inserted starting from the top of the shoe up to below the knee. Detail: notice remains of silk stocking at edges But the laces in this  picture are not as old as that. They were probably made toward the end of the 19th century, when decorated stocking fronts were very much in fashion.  Tess explains: "It is white Chantilly. [The pieces] are boat shaped and are quite fine. The white silk stockings to which they were attached are gone, but they were obviously cut away because there are remnants of the silk knitting still evident".   If anyone is interested in seeing more of these decorated stockings, there are a lot of them in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Go to the museum collection database (http://www.metmuseum.org), then the Costume Institute, and then type in "stockings."   Thank you very much to Tess Parrish for letting me publish the picture of her lace and in my blog.

It's a small world

It's a small world, also when speaking about bobbin lace. From the 17th century onwards, merchants and dealers moved a lot of products from one country to another. And lace was not free of this movement either. In those times, when high society liked to use lace on their costumes and also on their home linen, lace was imported and exported in great quantities. This made it easy to copy designs or to inspire the new creations.

 

Due to this exchange along the time, we can recognize some of the local pieces of lace while visiting a museum in another part of the world. And that is precisely what has happened to me while visiting Rauma (Finland): the popular lace of this museum reminds me a lot to our Spanish lace of Camariñas and Almagro. And, in some cases, they not only remind me, but they are identical.

For example, the edging we use to call in Spain popularly the "lace of the princess" (because this lace, made by the lacemakers of Camariñas, was given to our princess Elena as a gift on her wedding), can be seen in Rauma, in a collection of lace redrawn by the well known Finnish lacemaker Impi Alanko. In a small card underneath the lace it says: Impi Pitsi (Impi's lace).

Whether this lace arrived in Finland from Spain, or it arrived from another country, whether it is original from there and it arrived in Spain from another place... this is something we perhaps will never know. What is sure is that this model, which I especially like, has also been liked by other peoples in other places of the world.