I am not sure that lace was white from the beginning. In the case of bobbin lace, there is some argument to be made that much of the early lace was metallic. Lena Dahren has written a fascinating dissertation about metallic laces found in Swedish royal and ecclesiastical collections. It is likely that outside of such collections the precious metal laces were destroyed to reclaim the metal through a process known as "drizzling". I read somewhere that the switch to, or greater use of white /ecru thread was at least somewhat inspired by sumptuary laws forbidding ostentatious laces of gold and silver. Also there are some remarks in Nuw Modelbuch by RM referring to making the patterns in non-metallic thread and ascribing a certain virtue to non- metallic thread suggestive that Protestants might prefer natural linen thread to the more over the top metallics favored by Catholics. Other than the use of metallic thread, I think that there were examples of colored silk thread used in 16th and 17th century plaited laces. I have seen several examples of this at the museum. One theory of the origins of bobbin lace making is that it originally derived from the practices of people known as "silk women" who used a plaiting technique in which the threads were hung in loops and manipulated with the fingers according to "recipes" that were written down in the past and recently published by Naomi Speiser. These silk women were making decorative passamenterie in colors some of which resemble bobbin lace. Devon
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