A classmate hosted a wedding-viewing brunch this morning, so I baked my most British scones, rustled up some clotted cream, pulled out a silly hat and sat down to watch The Event.But amidst all the Sarah-Burton-for-Alexander-McQueen dress excitement (and in my secret, shameful romantic-dream-princess-Barbie heart, I have to admit to liking the gown) not enough people registered the coolest part of the dress: the Royal School of Needlework did the lace stitching!
The RSN is an incredibly awesome organization founded in 1872 by Princess Helena, Queen Victoria's third daughter, to provide lower and middle class women with marketable needlework skills. They are known for producing amazing stitchers and incredibly creative needlework designers. Much of the famous needlework done for the Arts and Crafts movement was done either at the school or by graduates, and they also did the needlework on Queen Elizabeth's coronation robes. They have one of the largest collections of needlework in the west and use their thousands of collection pieces as teaching examples to their students who still train in this highly traditional handicraft.
I got a chance to visit the RSN when I was in London with my graduate cohort this winter — besides being incrediby talented artisans, craftswomen and teachers, I can also say that the women of the RSN are almost absurdly welcoming. They took in 12 tired, hungry and cold graduate students and fed us tea and cookies while they told us the history of the school and the role of needlework in English dec arts history. And just think: while I was eating biscuits and gulping down hot tea, just a few rooms over the finest hands in English stitching were working overtime to make Princess Shinyhair's magical wedding dress. If only I'd known... I could have spilled some tea on it and made history.
Posts
