Lace today is the epitome of femininity, adoring everything from lingerie and t-shirts, to wedding dresses and thigh high boots. It can be edgy or virginal, ruinously expensive or cheap. Worn by wealthy aristocrats and royalty of both sexes the length of Europe, for three hundred years lace was a highly fashionable textile artform that graced nearly every article of clothing, accessories, home décor, and more. It was traded for land, cost the modern equivalent of hundreds of thousands, and its manufacture was considered a trade secret. Lace in its most popular form was a luxury commodity whose market and production European kingdoms plotted to dominate. For much of its history, lacemaking was taught as a needlework technique to young aristocratic women at the same time it was taught as a subsistence occupation to labouring boys and girls in poor communities, religious institutions, and workhouses. The transformations wrought by the Consumer revolution, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century combined with technical developments in the nineteenth century altered the lace industry forever by making it more available and more affordable. In this class we will explore the history of lace and the parallels between the ways gender, class, ethnicity, and geographic location influence concepts of value in the past and today. We will examine how colonialism and economics played their part in the history and present-day face of lace. Diving into how the different types of lace lent themselves to particular economic structures and production strategies, we’ll cover the ways the physical nature of lace impacted its development.

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