Inspiration for an installation

I’ve been looking through old copies of Craft magazine and came across some inspiration for an installation I’m designing. I’ve been commissioned to produce a contemporary response to the Battle of Britain lace commemorative panel and as part of my response I would like to design an installation commemorating the airmen who lost their lives during the series of battles that constitute the Battle of Britain. I would like to produce a work that fills the room so Chiharu Shiota’s piece ‘In Between’ which fills the room with threads she uses to ‘draw in the air’ seemed very apposite as a way of linking lives with the air and the land. Angela Woodhouse’s ‘The waiting game’ also struck a chord, not because of her subject matter, but because I have been considering the use of parachutes and this suggested the idea of using a vast parachute to fill the room. Najla ElZein’s installation ‘The wind portal’ also suggested the propellers of vast numbers of aircraft. None of these ideas were what the original artists had in mind and I will not be copying any of them, but they have been very useful in crystallising ideas that have been running through my head and will help me define my own installation

Embroidered sleeve ruffles

I’ve been reading a beautiful book by Heather Toomer called ‘Embroidered with white’ which describes the eighteenth century fashion for Dresden lace and whitework in general. It is lavishly illustrated with photographs of lace and also includes drawings and patterns by Elspeth Reed, in the same style as those used in Janet Arnold’s books. Heather explains that sleeve ruffles in this period were made separately from the chemise and gathered onto a tape. They would have been sewn onto the band at the end of the chemise sleeve for wear, but would have been removed for laundering as they required special care. Rather than being circular many of them had a wider section that fell below the elbow such as the one in the image. They were often made in sets with perhaps a matching apron and cap. Although the ruffle in the picture only has one layer they were often made with several layers and some were embellished with the addition of a lace edging. They are beautiful items and with the current fashion for ruffled sleeves perhaps they’ll make a come back?

Lace in Rome

I haven’t found much lace in Rome but did come across several ecclesiastical shops selling vestments for priests, which had some lace in their windows. The selection here all came from one shop and included a variety of types. The main image shows needle lace and cutwork.

While the second image includes some handmade bobbin lace as well as chemical lace and the tape lace that is common in Brugges but made in the Far East. I assume they’re used to edge vestments and other church linen such as altar cloths.

Brise-bise lace curtains

I keep coming across the term brise-bise in my curtain research so decided to find out more. Brise-bise or Brisby net curtains are short curtains that hang across the lower part of the window. The name comes from the French for ‘wind breaker’. They tend to have a channel along the selvedge for a rod or wire to be passed through, which is attached to either side of the window and often a scalloped lower edge. They were popular in the early twentieth century, hung across the lower part of a sash window. Café curtains are similar, short curtains, which became popular in the 1950s. They could be hung singly but were sometimes hung in tiers with one curtain across the upper part of the window and another over the lower part. Like brise-bise curtains they were often made with a channel for a hanging rod or sometimes had tab tops or loops through which the rod was inserted.

Nottingham curtain lace

I’ve just spent a couple of days in Nottingham researching curtain lace, in particular the lace company J B Walker. The company was founded in the 1840s by Benjamin Walker who was one of the pioneers of lace curtain making. Like many lace companies it has had a complicated history since then, with different parts of the family specialising in different aspects of the business as well as various sales, mergers and acquisitions. The company history is fascinating but I was also interested to see some of the products of the ‘drapery and napery’ side of the company, basically curtains, tablecloths and bedspreads. The image above is a tablecloth made from a cotton and terylene mix, which gives a slightly more solid feel compared with a tablecloth made of cotton, but is softer than one made of terylene thread alone. It was also interesting to see drafts of lace patterns squared off and painted for the lace curtain machines as well as some day books used by John Walker describing meetings, thread prices and visits to factories, giving a good picture of the day to day running of the company.

More lace in the Fashion Museum, Bath

I saw the exhibition A history of fashion in 100 objects at the Fashion Museum in Bath and was most interested to see what lace it included. The first showcase includes some beautiful embroidered and lace embellished gloves so I was not disappointed. There were small lace edgings in some of the dress on show but it wasn’t until the section on Regency fashion that lace became prominent. A frock from 1817 of madras lace (shown in the image on the left) was very delicate. According to the caption, the development of machine made net in 1809 meant that all over lace dresses were very popular at this time. A stunning example of a dress incorporating lace was an 1860s dress of pale green silk with applied black machine lace combined with a Bucks point handmade bobbin lace collar.

A red and white 1870 dress with bustle and low décolletage also included some pretty blonde style lace around the neckline. There was not much lace on show in the later, more modern, sections of the exhibition – probably because the interesting lace dresses were on show in the concurrent Lace in fashion exhibition. I did think the 2011 House of McQueen silk tulle embroidered gown by Sarah Burton was quite lace-like though.

Fashion doll

I was intrigued to see this fashion doll and her wardrobe at the Fashion Museum in Bath because it reminded me of the teenage doll I had as a child. This one is called Miss Virginia Lachasse and she was modelled on Virginia Woodford, the house model for Lachasse of Mayfair. She was made in 1954 to raise money for the Greater London Fund for the Blind. Her clothes were made to scale in the Lachasse workrooms, her stockings were made by Aristoc and her cosmetics by Yardley. She even has tiny gloves and a handbag.