MEGEVE LACE
by Josette Martin Favelier

Type of lace: Freehand Alpine lace (made without any pricking). Horsehair or hemp thread.

Location:Megève is a nice village, facing the Mont Blanc, in Haute-Savoie, now well-known as a holiday resort.

    The tools:


The pillow is made with sawdust, and is covered with a striped piece of fabric. The lace is made directly on the pillow, without any pricking.

The bobbins are bulbous, a bit like the Tignes bobbins.
The lacemaker puts few pins, just on the edges.

Françoise Monneret(whose hands are seen here)
has decoded more than 45 laces and designed the
diagrams to give lacemakers the possibility to
make these long-forgotten patterns ,and to save 
the art from oblivion.  She also works for the 
revival in the valleys where they originated, 
teaching lace to those who wish to learn , 
and they are many!!!

Point de Paris 

     The lace:

Women in Megève used to make this straight peasant lace with hemp, but more often with horsehair. The reason is the breeding in the area, of sturdy horses for farming or the army. The production lasted from the end of the 18th century till the 1850s for hemp lace and the 1st World War for horsehair lace. It was one of the rare centres of production of horsehair lace, with Switzerland.

The point is half stitch mainly, with a gimp in the pattern.

It was sold in the Alps both in France and Italy by peddlers to women who wished to adorn their “coiffes” (=caps), or more often the children’s.


Child from Savoie wearing a beautiful 
cap adorned with silk ribbons and black
horsehair lace.
Picture taken at: Le Rassemblement
de Saint Jean de Maurienne,
June 25,2000

Article:

For more information, you can read Françoise Monneret’s article on this lace in:
 OIDFA Bulletin 3/2001: The horsehair lace of Megève.
BOOKS:
Françoise Monneret’s has also edited catalogues of patterns of Alpine laces:
  • La Dentelle de Tignes , 31 patterns
  • Les Angles de la Dentelle deTignes , 31 patterns
  • La Dentelle de Maurienne 1 , 11 patterns
  • La Dentelle de Maurienne 2 , 20 patterns
  • La Dentelle des Pays de Savoie, to be published in June 2002
    • Places of Intrest:


    Contacts :