The meaning of guipure is hard to connect with the present use of the word, which is very loose and undefined. It was originally made of silk twisted round a little strip of thin parchment or vellum; and silk twisted round a thick thread or cord was called guipure, hence the name.
The modern Honiton is called guipure, also Maltese lace and its Buckingham imitations. The Italians called the old raised points of Venice and Spain guipures. It is hard to know what claim any of these have to the name.
A fine silk guipure is made in the harems of Turkey, of which specimens were shown in the International Exhibition. This point de Turquie is but little known, and is costly. It mostly represents black, white, or mixed colors, fruit, flowers, or foliage.
The lace once made in Malta was a coarse kind of Mechlin or Valenciennes of one arabesque pattern; but since 1833, when an English lady induced a Maltese woman named Ciglia to copy in white an old Greek coverlet, the Ciglia family commenced the manufacture of black and white Maltese guipure, till then unknown in the island.
It is the fineness of the thread which renders the real Brussels ground, vrai réseau, so costly. The finest is spun in dark underground rooms; for contact with the dry air causes the thread to break. The spinner works by feeling rather than sight, though a dark paper is placed to throw the thread out, and a single ray of light is admitted to fall on the work. She examines every inch drawn from her distaff, and, when any inequality occurs, stops her wheel to repair the mischief.
The réseau is made in three different ways: by hand, on the pillow, and more lately by machinery—the last a Brussels-net made of Scotch cotton. The needle ground costs three times as much as the pillow; but it is stronger and easier to repair, the pillow ground always showing the join.
There are two kinds of flowers: those made with the needle, point à l’aiguille, and those on the pillow, point plat. The best flowers are made in Brussels itself, where they excel in the relief (point brode).
Each part of Brussels lace is made by a different hand. One makes the vrai réseau; another, the footing; a third, the point flowers; a fourth works the open jours; a fifth unites the different sections of the ground together; a sixth makes the plat flowers; a seventh sews the flowers upon the ground.
The pattern is designed by the head of the fabric, who, having cut the parchment into pieces, hands it out ready pricked. In the modern lace, the work of the needle and pillow are combined.
Mechlin lace, sometimes called broderie de Malines is a pillow lace made all in one piece, its distinguishing feature being a broad, flat thread which forms the flower. It is very light and transparent, and answers very well as a summer lace. It is said that Napoleon I. admired this lace, and that, when he first saw the light Gothic tracery of the cathedral spire at Antwerp, he exclaimed: “C’est comme de la dentelle de Malines.”