When, in 1840, Queen Victoria of England wore a Honiton lace-trimmed white gown on her wedding day to Prince Albert, she kickstarted a trend that would last centuries. The lace in her dress symbolized ... Guipure Example of Guipure lace with a Torchon edge Cunningham Lace, advert, 1907, Irish International Exhibition Guipure lace is a type of bobbin lace.

Understanding the Context

It connects the motifs with bars or plaits rather than net or mesh. Guipure is a French word. As Jackson describes, guipure of the Renaissance period was finer and more expensive, created with bobbins on pillows. By the nineteenth and twentieth century, imitation laces, made using crochet techniques or automated machinery, were also being called guipure.

Key Insights

Guipure lace is a unique type of lace that doesn’t have a mesh background. Instead, it connects bold floral or geometric motifs with sturdy bars or plaits, creating an open, “netless” design. The name “guipure” comes from the French word meaning “tape,” which refers to the thick threads that outline and connect the patterns. In English, guipure translates to “open work” or “cutwork lace,” perfectly describing its distinctive construction method. Guipure noun a term used for lace of different kinds; most properly for a lace of large pattern and heavy material which has no ground or mesh, but has the pattern held together by connecting threads called bars or brides GUIPURE definition: any of various laces, often heavy, made of linen, silk, etc., with the pattern connected by brides rather than by a net ground.

Final Thoughts

See examples of guipure used in a sentence. Guipure is a type of lace characterized by distinct motifs or sprigs connected by bars, bridges, or plaits rather than a mesh or net ground, often featuring coarse threads such as linen, silk, or metal, and sometimes outlined with a thicker gimp thread for a raised, three-dimensional effect.