Laces : How to buy the Right Lace ?
African heritage is rich in diversity and very upscale styles in ethnic clothing. Unlike in Western Europe and USA, haute couture is not just for a minority: having custom made clothing based on measurements for ceremonies, weddings and parties is very common.
African and ethnic clothing are carefully hand made by a myriad of designers, and the rich fabrics are sourced from all over the World.
The key in ethnic apparel is the fabric sourcing: the fabric must be exclusive and top quality. For embroideries and laces, the very best sourcing is from Austria and Switzerland.
Swiss voiles or African laces are made of one base fabric (Named ground base) and stitched yarns making the design.
The ground base is 100% cotton but the fabric itself is much more than basic cotton: it’s light, nervous and made from the thinnest cotton yarn in the World, using the very best cotton fibers.
With a special finishing, this cotton fabric doesn’t shrink after washes and keeps its colors. It’s the utmost of cotton fabrics. In non ethnical clothing you usually find equivalent fabrics in very top end collections of famous brands: Dior, Pierre Cardin, Nina Ricci…
The yarns making the design are also very important in the final look. They are either in viscose or polyester. Viscose yarns look flatter and shine better. It's also more expensive than polyester yarns.
Top grade quality yarns are defined as follows ::
Now that the basics for quality of ground fabrics and lace yarns are defined comes the design itself. The design should by all means not be made in mass production : they should be exclusive as a celebration is always a very special event.
Exclusive doesn’t mean hand made: some hand made designs are produced in 10’s of miles of fabric! To be exclusive, a lace design has to be new, which means straight out from the design studio of the lace manufacturer, and the manufacturer should guarantee that the design will be produced on small production runs. Being from Austria or Switzerland is not a guarantee by itself: some low key manufacturers keep producing the very same designs year after year…
But once you have spot the right lace manufacturer: real Swiss voile, top grade yarns and exclusive designs, then you just have to pick up the design and color you like!
Having in hands a top quality fabric, the last step is to turn this yardage into clothing: when the fabric is the right one, there isn’t any problem for the designer to make for you the most stunning ethnic dress in the World!
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