Lace Museum in Bruges

The Lace Museum in Bruges was built as a tribute to the memory that lace saved many urban families from poverty and hunger. Everyone knows the well-established phrase “Brussels lace,” but historically, it was the residents of Bruges who were the first in Belgium to weave the finest works of art.

History of lace

Before moving on to the description of the Lace Museum in Bruges, some background should be told. At the beginning of the 18th century, in 1717, the city of Bruges was not going through its best times. Then the local bishop decided to help the population who needed income. For this purpose, the nuns of the Order of the Apostolic Sisters undertook to teach women how to weave lace. The weaving process took a lot of time and required painstaking work. During a working day, a craftswoman could weave only a few centimeters of valuable material. That is why lace was so highly valued and soon won the hearts of the court ladies of France and England.

Continuing the topic

In the Lace Museum in Bruges they say that different regions of Flanders had their own characteristics of lace production. In Bruges, linen threads of different thicknesses were used for work; they were woven into beautiful floral patterns, which were combined into entire canvases. To create her masterpieces, each craftswoman used a weave of at least 300 threads, which are wound around sharpened bobbins. In some products the number of such threads reached 700.

In England, the demand for Belgian lace exceeded all possible limits, local manufacturers suffered because of this, so the authorities banned its import. But this did not greatly reduce its attractiveness; lace fabrics were smuggled into the country; a special designation was even invented to disguise it, it was called “Angleterre”. In some regions of Flanders, lace continues to be woven according to old traditions; this skill is highly valued today.

Lace Museum in Bruges

It was opened in 1970 and tells the story of this amazingly complex, but also amazingly beautiful needlework. The oldest exhibits from the 17th and 18th centuries are stored here under special protective glass, but anyone can look at them.

There is a store at the Bruges Lace Museum where you can not only touch lace, but also buy it. In addition, the museum is actively engaged in educational work: it conducts master classes and teaches everyone who wants to work with thin linen threads. Albums and magazines are also published here that introduce ordinary people to lace weaving.

Visiting the Lace Museum in Bruges will be interesting for those who are not indifferent to needlework, while others can simply admire the work of Belgian craftswomen.