Early twentieth century lace scarves

 

These lace scarves were all advertised in the 1904 catalogue produced by Samuel Peach, a well-known lace manufacturing company based in Nottingham. They are interesting because despite being machine made they all copy different styles of handmade lace. The black lace scarf in the top image is an imitation of a fine Chantilly-style lace, popular at the time, especially for evening and mourning wear. The scarf is 82 inches long (slightly over 2 metres) and 11 inches wide (28 cm) and cost 8 shillings and 6 pence.

The second scarf ends in a very bold pattern, similar to crochet lace, although it is actually chemical lace. This is made by machine embroidering onto a sacrificial background, which is removed by chemical or heat treatment, leaving the embroidered lace behind. This scarf is narrower and shorter than the black one (63 x 6 inches; 160 x 15 cm) and costs 3 shillings and 6 pence.

This scarf imitates fine point lace, such as Buckinghamshire lace, and incorporates several motifs that are common in the handmade version of this lace. This one is much cheaper than the previous two scarves and only costs 9 pence. This seems quite a bargain as it is 52 x 4 inches (132 x 10 cm) in size.

The final scarf is also machine embroidered but this time the embroidery is worked directly on the net background. This technique imitates handmade tambour lace, which is made with a fine hook that the lacemaker uses to work a type of chain stitch through the holes in the net. This scarf is also quite narrow (66 x 6 inches; 168 x 15 cm) and only costs 7 pence, probably reflecting the small amount of lace it includes. Unfortunately there are no illustrations showing how the scarves were worn, but the catalogue does give us a snapshot of what was available at the time.