Yes, I do deny that capitalism killed lace. Industrialization and fashion are much more likely culprits. In fact, you could make a very good argument that capitalism sustained lace, by encouraging the trade that carried it throughout Europe and enlarging the number of people who aspired to luxurious items and therefore wished to buy lace. The transformation of ordinary thread into something more valuable than an equivalent weight of gold is a quintessential example of market forces at work. Conspicuous consumption--and the demand for lace of the early 1700's was perhaps as extreme a form of *that* as the world has ever seen--is not restricted to capitalist systems, but it is a very conspicuous feature of capitalism. Lace (handmade and machine-made both) lost its foothold at the same time architects stopped adding carved cornices and decorated porticos to their buildings, furniture makers cut back radically on the amount of marquetry and carving in their designs, and artists abandoned purely figural painting for varying degrees of abstraction. "Less is more" is the attitude that killed lace in fashion--hardly a capitalist sentiment!
If the fashion changes and people go back to wanting more decoration and embellishment in daily life, the same capitalist mechanism that launched lace in the first place will probably pump its value back up again--look at what's happening to the price of Victorian paintings now that it's modish to admire them again! As to why it was getting harder and harder to find people to make handmade lace in the early 1900's, that's a function of the other forms of work becoming available to women, rather than simply the function of capitalistic forces. If keeping handmade lace viable requires forcing people to make lace when they might rather do something else, then I'm afraid I think lace shouldn't be a viable profession. It's not the only labor-intensive skill that's being preserved as a hobby instead of a way to earn a living. My original point, by the way, had nothing to do with whether capitalism or communism provids a more nurturing environment for lace-making. I merely wanted to remind people that Czech 20th-century lace was well established before the second world war, and the "extraordinary creative explosion" on which Devon commented may be more due to the fact that there was no real gap in the transmission of this vital and evolving tradition than that the communist government provided (admittedly quite significant) support to lacemakers. Soberly, Sue. At 03:57 PM 1/31/2004 EST, you wrote: >Dear Susan, >Vis a vis your contention that the political system had no effect on lace >development in the Eastern Block: Will you deny that capitalism killed lace? >Why then should it seem a unlikely that an atmosphere in which market forces >are rejected and rendered null and void would be the only possible setting >for the perpetuation of handmade lace in the 20th Century? >Devon Susan Lambiris Raleigh, NC [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
