Border

Object Type
This type of lace is known as gimp lace. Gimp is the cord wrapped with silk from which the lace is constructed. The use of thick thread and cord enabled the creation of a textured, three-dimensional effect, which was very popular in the second half of the 17th century. It was used to decorate both dress and furnishings. This deep border would have been applied to such furnishings as bed curtains.

Materials & Making
Even more than its texture, this lace depends for its effect on vividness of colour. The import of dyestuffs and the new availability of different ingredients with the opening up of trade routes provided the textile trade with an increasing range of colours, and varying shades and quality within them.

Ownership & Use
This length of gimp lace could have been made professionally, or it could have been made by a skilled needlewoman at home for her own domestic use. The diarist Samuel Pepys wrote on 9 June 1661: 'this day my wife put on her black silk gown, which is new laced all over with black gimp lace, as the fashion is.' The following year his wife had a 'green petticoate of flowered satin, with fine white and black gimp lace of her own putting-on, which is very pretty'.