Fabric of life
‘I love any lace that tells a story,’ says Anne Swift, an antique lace dealer for 40 years. And stories there are, of how lace first wove itself into society through fashion and, above all, the countless hours women worked to create it.
Lace first appeared in 16th-century Italy, probably Venice, where early lace pattern books were published; in Belgium, too, which grew the best flax for linen thread. Lacemaking began as a
