Ilske and Everybody I think it is interesting that Ilske tells us that the German lacemaking organization has 4500 members. Considering that the population of Germany is less than the U.S. and the IOLI has 1600-1700 members, that means that the percentage of lacemakers in the population in Germany is higher than that in the U.S. It is possible that 4500 lacemakers is the largest percentage that can be expected in any modern population, given the pressures of modern life. So in the U.S. we still have room to grow until we reach that same percentage of the population.
I don't claim to have any knowledge of lacemaking's decline or growth in this country. But I don't think that merely counting the number of suppliers will give a good estimate. When lacemaking appears to be rising it is natural that more people would try to enter the business of supplying lacemakers. But with every kind of new business, most don't survive. After a few years, the ones that haven't found the key to survival will shut down, leaving only those that have figured it out. I think the points about the internet being a factor are important and internet advertising is more important than ads in lace magazines. Nowadays a business that chooses not to have an internet presence is probably sabotaging itself. It seems to me that the best strategy is just to maximize every route for people to come to you: internet, a walk-in shop, mail order, lace days. One begins to get a picture of a lace supplier as a kind of octopus desperately running 3 different treadmills at the same time. They ARE giving us what we want, god bless 'em. Lorelei - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
