Vintage Lace An Inspiration
Designer’s Vintage Secrets
If you have already read my article, “Vintage Lace Fabric” you will know that vintage lace is probably my favourite vintage textile.
I’m always fascinated to watch designers at work. I used to meet a designer friend while walking my dog in Kensington Gardens. He was always picking up odd things he spotted on our walks, mostly trash. He loved texture and if a piece of paper or cardboard discarded on stony ground had been walked on or ridden over by a bicycle, he would pick it up and take it back to his studio. These scraps, cigarette packets, sweet wrappers, small pieces of silver foil and crushed drinks cans, rusty barbed wire, rope, string, bark and pieces of variously coloured glass, were his inspiration and he collected them wherever he went.
One wall of his cluttered studio was an ever-changing sculptural collage of detritus. From his hours of gazing at this huge abstract picture of man’s littering habits and sometimes photographs of sections of it, beautiful watercolour patterns were created, scanned and digitally manipulated. These were eventually sold as fabric designs to clothing companies and even other design studios. Later, fabrics and clothing would emerge from Chinese manufacturers to appear in shops and department stores and a swatch of fabric would be added to the relevant page in his portfolio.
From time to time I sold vintage fabric documents to him, usually vintage abstract printed silk or cotton, he was always pleased to see something vintage or retro that was similar to his own work. I don’t think he ever used any of his purchases for inspiration however, until one day I showed him a book of vintage lace document swatches and he became very excited. “This is just what I’ve been looking for,” he said and bought the whole album. I asked to come around and see what he intended to do with them and he agreed.
At the studio I watched as he scanned a group of the vintage lace swatches into his computer and manipulated them in Photoshop, combining them as overlays with many of his existing designs using CAD and finally printing off selections of the ones he liked.
Remembering my fat auntie’s lace cushion and the huge amount of work it once took to produce lace, I wonder what the ancient lace makers would make of a world in which we can rework their labour so very simply and quickly? I’d like to think they would be excited by it. I was. The whole process was a revelation.
I’ve sold this man many pieces of vintage fabric since, but never lace. The collection he bought amounted to eighteen hundred large vintage lace samples, the majority unique designs in a range of colours. As he said himself, “A lifetimes worth of vintage lace.”
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