LACE, TAPE, EDGING

A beautiful example of tape lace edging for a garment, emulating the finest of bobbin laces sought after for both men and women’s costume. Narrow machine tapes of different shapes have been attached by hand to machine net in a floral design. Later a gimp has been added and hand stitched little circles. 19th century.

The advent of machines, bobbin lace makers could not compete. With the invention of machine made net in 1816, new ways were developed to emulate bobbin lace using machine tapes added to manufactured net and background.