Hi Carolyn, and all my lacemaking friends on Arachne, Carolyn asked if I took photos, and no, I didn't, but I googled and found these great photos of the museum:
http://www.fragonard.com/parfums_grasse/gb/fragonard/events_fragonard.cfm has a good photo of a few of the costumes I saw. I looked mostly at the quilted skirts - I'd heard of them but had never seen them, and I've always thought they didn't sound very attractive. But they were nice. The skirt fabric was hand quilted, and not very thick, similar to the quilted placemats that you see everywhere for sale in Provence, though each little poofed diamond was, well, quite poofy. The skirts all stood out in a nice bell shape. The skirt fabric was all light colored with a flowered pattern, just like in this photo. The aprons were fine, dark colored silk, gathered at the waist and tied in back. The tops of the aprons were no more than 1/3 of the entire circumferance of the waist and spread out to cover the fronts of the skirts out to the sides. The bodices were all short jackets with sleeves that went just below the elbow, exactly like in this photo. Several were blue and the fabric looked like a coarse-ish handwoven plainweave linen. As a handweaver, I would guess 20/2 or 25/2 linen thread in contempory sizes. The fabric was not thick or heavy, and it looked comfortable. The bodice/jacket was fitted, not padded but surely lined, and the neck opening was close, but without a collar. Around the neck was a black ribbon with a cross hanging from it. If I remember correctly, the ribbon was threaded through a small ring in the top of the cross so the cross did not hang down very far from the ribbon. There were straw hats with two of the costumes, wide brimed with small, flat crowns. They must have perched precariously on the very tops of women's heads and would have needed a stout ribbon in any kind of wind. The lace caps in the photos are the ones I saw. Here are some more photos: http://www.fragonard.com/parfums_grasse/GB/fragonard/grasse/provencal_costume _and_jewelry_museum.cfm Margaret and Bev in BC suggested Lierse lace for the colored lace that was in the exhibit, so I googled Lierse also. Lierse is close, but the lace I saw definitely had a background net made on a 45 degree grid, and the Lierse I saw on the internet had a tulle background. So maybe the lace I saw in Grasse was 18th century. The lace I saw was chainstitched and otherwise looked much like the Lierse I saw on the internet. Sally > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [lace] lace in Grasse, France > Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:02:18 -0400 > > Sally, thank you for sharing. Do you have any photos of the museum? I do > 18thC French colonial reenacting and the journals state that the officers > said Canadienne habitantes reminded them of Provençales. I would love to see > any photos you have, as I will never get to France. > > Respectfully, > Carolyn > http://18thccuisine.blogspot.com/ > http://carolynsmith-kizer.com > - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
