The Lace of Puy-en-Velay

The thousand-year-old history of Puy-en-Velay has also been written with a bobbin… Puy lace is an ancestral know-how but which remains in the era of time. This handling, this very special sound when the threads intertwine on the tile have made Puy-en-Velay an important center for hand lace manufacturing. Listed as French intangible cultural heritage, Puy-en-Velay lace is, along with Calais lace and Alençon lace, a marvel of designer know-how.

the lace-making know-how of Puy-en-Velay!

There are skills that must be cherished, preserved, and celebrated! The lace of Le Puy-en-Velay is one of them, like a memory one doesn't want to let go of. Those afternoons spent gathering in the villages, where the lacemakers would bring out their pillows and set up shop in the streets during the warmer months. To the sound of bobbins clicking, chatter, and songs…

Some claim that, throughout the Middle Ages, the town of Puy-en-Velay, the departure point for Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, which had become a major pilgrimage town, attracted large crowds, including merchants and peddlers. It was the latter who introduced lace to Velay and taught the basics.

Lace can be learned!

The cobbled streets of Le Puy-en-Velay hold many secrets. One of them can now be learned. Indeed, the Bobbin Lace Teaching Centre perpetuates the tradition and practice of lacemaking.

If you're feeling creative, the Teaching Center offers various training courses, from beginner to introductory workshops, to learn or improve your skills in the art of lacemaking. Puy lace is an art form , and is even listed in the Inventory of French Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The Bobbin Lace Teaching Center also offers exhibitions to showcase its works.

THE NATIONAL LACE CONSERVATORY WORKSHOP

It is with the mission of maintaining and perpetuating the know-how of bobbin lace at a level of excellence that the Atelier Conservatoire National de la Dentelle du Puy-en-Velay was created in 1976. It continues to make exist a tradition of high technicality through the development of lace with contemporary designs.

Attached to the National Furniture Administration, the establishment welcomes lacemakers who enrich the national collections and are placed in prestigious places (contemporary art exhibitions, high places of the Republic, etc.). They illustrate the vitality of the art of lace in the 21st century.

The Velay gallery of the Crozatier museum presents the lace collections in the exhibition LACE FROM LE PUY? FROM CLICHÉ TO MODERNITY!

This exhibition illustrates how Puy lace, from cheap productions for export to royal pieces, from street designs to contemporary creations, from hand to machine, has constantly modernized to remain a major player in lace in France today.

The lace of Le Puy is not singular, but multifaceted. For 400 years, the lace-making center of Haute-Loire has constantly reinvented itself to withstand the crises that have often threatened its existence, and to keep pace with the ever-changing whims of fashion. Manufacturers, merchants, designers, and the lace-makers themselves have always adapted their practices to meet market demands.

The Crozatier Museum also presents a beautiful collection of lace works and very interesting sample books that you can discover while walking through its aisles.

Popular tradition has it that lace was born in Puy-en-Velay under the hands of a young embroiderer, Isabelle Mamour. It was on the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Annunciation in 1407 that the Bishop of Puy requested the ornament of a mantle for the statue of the Virgin Mary.

Wanting to compose a unique and exceptional work, Isabelle decided to interweave threads into a shuttle and attach the shuttles with pins... obtaining a fine and transparent dress for the black virgin, carried in a procession through the city. She thus created the first lace tile.

to historical reality

According to historians, the origin of lace dates back to the middle of the 15th century. Its commercial growth began in the 16th century when the nobles took up this fashion. Titles of nobility were judged by the volume of lace one wore. In all the houses in the region, women spent their evenings making Puy lace renowned for its finesse and creativity.

Lace makers worked on a piecework basis, from home, providing a significant supplementary income for the time. Wholesalers supplied the patterns and threads, and the lace pattern was returned after production. Thanks to its exports, the lace industry employed 80.000 people in the 18th century, and Le Puy-en-Velay boasted 173 merchants at that time!

The institution of the blessed

In the 17th century , a pious young woman named Anne-Marie Martel noticed that the lacemakers of Velay devoted themselves body and soul to their craft, sometimes neglecting the education of their children. In 1665, she founded the Congregation of the Béates ( from the Latin beata, meaning Blessed) and established assembly houses in hamlets and villages, whose mission was to care for children, ensure their education, and train the lacemakers.

Today, even if most of the houses of the blessed are abandoned, some can still be visited, such as the assembly house of Loudes.

an appellation for puy lace

This regional industry continued until the 1920s, when the first mechanical lace-making machines appeared in Velay. In 1931, the Civil Court of Le Puy-en-Velay recognized these local practices and ruled that the name "DENTELLE DU PUY" ( LENTEL OF LE PUY) was exclusively reserved for lace made by hand using bobbins handled by the worker.

This provision will serve to designate the quality, ancestral know-how and tradition of bobbin lace from Puy-en-Velay.

• The tile : It is a square cushion on which we place all the equipment. On the upper part is the drum; it accommodates the cardboard or model of the pattern to be executed. The glass-headed pins are used to fix the linen thread on the tile and to respect the outline of the lace to be executed.
• The spindles: Their function is well defined. The vellav spindle is a small turned wooden instrument, 8 to 10 cm long and elongated in shape. The head holds the linen thread when stopped. The spool or spindle is the central part which is used to store the wire; finally, the handle is used to hold and direct the spindle.
• Pins: They are used to stop the thread in order to follow the design stitched on the cardboard. They therefore hold the wire crossings in place. They are more or less fine depending on the size of the thread. In the past, they were made of copper or brass because these materials did not rust and did not stain the lace. Then they were made of stainless steel with a multi-colored glass head, and today this is the most common model.
• The box : He's the boss. The boxes are the supports for the drawn models grouped in sheets of approximately 10 models and classified by degrees of difficulty.

What is raw material?

Lace is made with silk thread, wool, gold or silver thread but especially with linen or cotton thread.

PRACTICAL TIPS

To discover…

Around the Puy lace

Musée Crozatier

Museum

From €8 / adult

Closed. Opens tomorrow at 10pm

Le Puy-en-Velay

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Visit Le Puy-en-Velay

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Atelier Conservatoire National de la Dentelle – Manufactures nationales – Sèvres et Mobilier national

Company to visit

Free

Closed. Opens tomorrow at 09pm

Le Puy-en-Velay

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