Campaign promoting lace sales after World War II

Browsing through a 1919 edition of the American trade magazine Lace and Embroidery Review I was intrigued by an initiative to revive lace and embroidery sales in the aftermath of the Second World War. To encourage sales The Lace and Embroidery Trade, based in New York, proposed a week long series of events and displays, at the end of April, to promote lace and embroidery throughout the United States. The article promises those reading it, who would have been lace buyers or retailers, that ‘the success of the event is assured’ because fashion magazines, the trade press, newspapers, department stores, specialist shops and the lace trade are all working together to make it so. It just relies on the reader playing their part by advertising in their local newspaper, making beautiful window displays and generally freshening up their department. The article continues by asserting ‘We feel confident you will co-operate to the limit of your ability’ and ‘will enlist the support of your ready-to-wear buyer’ as well as other department heads to display lace trimmed merchandise. No pressure then!

Luckily the Review seems to realise that its readers might need a little help with all this advertising and promoting so it provides templates for them. For example the illustrations above are all available either free or at cost if electroplate images are required.

There are also suggestions for how to use the images for windows cards or newspaper advertising, with appropriate layout designs and text. I think this is a very clever idea as it meant the quality of the advertising would be high, it would also be standardised throughout the country so would have brand appeal and thus link all the events together. The Review also included a page of endorsements from various lace retailers agreeing to take part in the lace week and reinforcing what a great idea the whole event would be, thus encouraging more readers to join in and become a part of it.

Following the lace week, the magazine included images of some acclaimed window displays from New York as well as more letters from those who had taken part and seen their sales increase. The initiative seems to have been successful in its aim of promoting lace sales, which had fallen during the war. In fact one reader from Chicago states that ‘this is the biggest lace and embroidery day we have had in three years and things look encouraging’.

Early twentieth century tape lace

 

These tape laces are all advertised in one of the monthly issues of The lace and embroidery review in 1911. This was an American magazine produced for trade buyers which discussed the new seasonal trends and contained many advertisements for buyers and suppliers of lace and embroidery. This advertorial shows ‘some beautiful real tape laces’ available from P K Wilson and son. It shows a range of design styles and suggests that the top and bottom ones are possibly Bohemian lace (a term described later in the same issue and discussed in my blog of 14 November 2024).

The fact that these laces are labelled as ‘real’ implies that they are all handmade. It is hard to see from the image but the second piece does seem to include lines of tape that have been gathered and folded to make the pattern and then joined with simple filling stitches. So this piece is probably handmade, although the tape itself is machine made.

In the third piece machine-made tapes have also been gathered and folded to make the bold designs on each side. This was probably worked by hand over a machine made net, with the surplus net being cut away once the tape had been sewn in place and joined with simple filling stitches.

The piece on the fourth line was probably worked in a similar way with the edging tape and flowers added to machine made net. The central swirls could also be made using a fine tape, but I think it would be much easier to work this part of the design in tambour lace with a hook and thread producing a fine chain stitch. Tape lace was certainly popular in the early twentieth century; customers appreciated its bold designs and manufacturers liked it because it was quick and easy to make.

Early twentieth century Nottingham lace curtains

 

My article on ‘Early twentieth century Nottingham lace curtains: an ideal window furnishing’ has now been printed in volume 53 issue 2 of Textile History. It compares three collections of machine lace curtains from the archive of Nottingham City Museums and Galleries and begins by explaining how lace curtains were made and designed. During my research I also studied sales catalogues, retail advertising and advice manuals to see how different styles of curtains were promoted to different social groups. The advertisers and writers did this by suggesting certain styles of curtains for different rooms in the house and for different budgets and even sold parcels of curtains to furnish the complete home. The early twentieth century was a time of great cultural change as styles and fashions changed and simpler furnishing styles became popular. The manufacturers also catered for a large export market which again favoured different styles and fabrics compared to the home market. If you’re interested in reading the article for yourself, the publishers have provided 50 free copies on a first come first served basis through the link here. I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/UGGP82D3BMHQFZBMGTHS/full?target=10.1080/00404969.2024.2318661

Advertising lace curtains as imitations of ‘real lace’

 

At the turn of the nineteenth century even those selling lace curtain were advertising them as ‘imitations of real lace’ and ‘very artistic reproductions of real lace’. The image comes from a catalogue produced by the department store Whiteleys in about 1910 describing some Nottingham lace curtains. The curtains are sold in pairs and cost 9/11 for a pair measuring 4 yards by 72 inches, so quite a sizeable amount of lace. The claim to be an imitation of real lace is obviously a marketing ploy to suggest the curtains are similar to handmade lace, which was experiencing a revival at the time thanks to the philanthropic efforts of various groups particularly in England, France and Belgium. However the only link to ‘real lace’ seems to be in the design the outer border of which is based on renaissance needlelace motifs.

The second image from the same catalogue claims to be ‘reproduction cluny lace’. Cluny lace was a fairly solid bobbin lace with pattern areas linked by plaits and leaves rather like English Bedfordshire lace. This pattern does include some areas that look like leaves but the swags and ribbon shapes seem quite alien to cluny lace so this may just be early advertising blurb.

The final image is labelled a ‘facsimile of old darned knitting’. Why anyone would want old darned knitting at their windows is a mystery to me, but this copywriter obviously thought it would appeal to someone. The central area does look a bit like a blanket made from crochet squares so perhaps that is what inspired the design.

Although these curtains have been labelled by the person assembling the catalogue who probably knew little about lace (or knitting!), I find it dispiriting that machine lace curtains aren’t being advertised as a marvel of industrial ingenuity but rather as copies of ‘real lace’. They clearly aren’t genuine copies of handmade lace so why not appreciate the design and manufacturing effort that has gone into them.