Lace King of London

The Lace King of London, Stephen Lunn of Lunn Antiques was featured in the New York Time in the mid 80’s

Stephen Lunn — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 08:00:39 +0000

As far as antique lace and vintage clothing is concerned we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time. In the late 70’s the New Romantics fashion was created by good looking young women wearing Victorian and Edwardian lace underwear as outer garments. They looked wonderful wearing our grandmothers petticoats with tiers of horizontal lace insertions, camisoles with drawstrings and handmade pintucks and silver plated 1^st world war nurses belts. High neck Edwardian blouses were worn with cameo brooches to good effect and in Diana, Princess of Wales 21^st birthday portrait she is wearing one of our antique blouses. Antique lace scarves, stoles, veils and handkerchiefs were also fashionable and big collections began to be formed of collector’s lace, early stuff from the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries. The finest quality antique bed and table linen was often decorated with handmade lace and this made it unbeatable value. ‘Normandy’ lace, a well arranged patch work of French laces and whitework, which existed in bedcovers curtains and cloths, was also rediscovered.

The fashion for all this antique and vintage lace led to it, and luckily us too, being featured in magazines and newspapers. It was in Vogue in May 1981 that we had 21 credits. This was followed by the shop featured in the New York Times, on January 20^th 1985, in an article about the lesser known London stores that sell the best. Then again in the New York Times on May 3^rd 1987 when Terry Trucco wrote an interesting and kind article about the antique linen and lace merchandise in our shop. Almost everything she said twenty years ago is still true today. Lace is the best textile ever made and prices for antique linen and lace are still reasonable and good value.

Bobbin lace made of very fine pure gold and silver threads

Stephen Lunn — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:44:57 +0000

Late 17th century silk christening cloth

A few years ago, I met a dealer at Newark antiques fair, who said she had some more vintage linen at her house in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. I duly made my appointment to go and see her and although Wellingborough is not one of the more pleasant towns of England, it’s rather drab and boring, I found her bungalow and was shown into her front room where the floor was literally covered deep in quite ordinary vintage textiles; nylon lace curtains mixed in with second-hand bed linen and furnishings.

My heart sank as I started to sift through the junk and then I noticed that she was following me around quite closely. Our bodies touched and her hand brushed on mine as I picked up a piece from the floor. She had auburn shoulder length hair and an attractive looking face with a full mouth. She was wearing a 1940’s printed crepe de chine knee length dress which her breasts filled out well. We looked at each other, I gently pulled her towards me and we began kissing.

I looked around the floor of junk textiles and saw a Marcella bedcover from about 1900 and a crimson coloured silk satin square cloth, with an unusual deep metal lace border. The lace was set on top of the cloth, not on the edge of it. I spread out the Marcella and put the thick silk cloth on top of it and we lay down together still kissing. Her neck and hair smelled lovely. As we kissed I undid the long row of small silk covered buttons on the back of her vintage dress. Silk is such a tactile fabric. I pushed it up over her head and revealed her breasts without a bra. She looked so lovely with her bottom lying on top of the vivid crimson silk and the lace forming a decorative edge from her breasts to her thighs. Off came my shirt and trousers, I kissed her front from her neck to her breasts and then slowly down to her thong which I tried to pull off with my teeth. It’s easier said than done, so my fingers helped and she helped to get her thong off too. What followed next was a passage, which was erotic and sensual. We lay in each other’s arms and enjoyed the fading excitement of such unexpected sex.

I asked her if she knew what the silk cloth underneath her was. She said she had no idea and I didn’t know either. I offered to take it to London and to sell it for her in partnership. I subsequently took it to Phillips in Bond Street and learned it was a late 17^th century silk christening cloth and the lace was bobbin lace made of very fine pure gold and silver threads. It was in remarkably good, almost mint condition and sold at auction for £1,800. Gold and Silver are very malleable metals and the threads were made by rolling sheets of gold and silver until they were extremely thin. Then from these sheets the threads were cut with a knife. The gold and silver threads were then twisted around silk threads to form the metal threads that were used by the lace makers. The lace was almost certainly made in London and the crimson silk satin was probably woven in Italy; hand woven on a small loom.

My lovely friend came up to London and I took her out for a candlelit dinner after giving her her share of the spoils. This time she had a different but similar 1940’s crepe dress on. A floral pattern on a yellow ground with front fastening buttons. Those crepe 40’s dresses fall so well. Later we made sweet love on a balmy summer evening in between antique embroidered linen sheets, cool, yet smooth as silk.

I am glad I have kept the photograph of the cloth. It’s such a good aide memoire.

LACE – the best textile ever made

Stephen Lunn — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:59:02 +0000

I am Stephen Lunn and I have been buying and selling antique lace for about 25 year. Juliet Lunn and I opened Lunn Antiques in 1976 and began by selling vintage clothes and fairly quickly moved into antique bed and table linens. These were usually embroidered and had fairly simple lace borders of cluny, filet, needlepoint and crochet.

At the beginning we used to go out to the London markets to spend about half of the weeks takings and one day in Portobello Road I came across a table full of lace pieces. They looked interesting, were priced inexpensively and I bought all of them. The vendor subsequently offered me two more lots and I completed the purchase of our first lace collection.

I took the lace to the Victoria and Albert Museum for identification where the keeper of textiles at the time was one of the world’s great lace experts; Santina Levey.

Most of the collection was 17^th and 18^th century and I was astonished at how old it was. There was a piece designed with men and women, half human half animal that was late 16^th century Adriatic. There began an interest in what is described in a child’s encyclopaedia as ‘the best textile ever made’ and which for me has remained undiminished for 25 years.

I would be interested in receiving replies and comments form anyone who has read this, my first blog.