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“No other centre of lace manufacturing in Russia enjoyed such fame as the city of Vologda and its modest dwellers” – Sophia Davydova wrote in her well-known research book Russian Lace and Russian Lace-makers.
It still remains unknown when the art of lace-making originated in the vast Vologda Region, and why in these very lands of the North it turned to be so popular a handicraft. The determining factors were probably the developed flax cultivation and trading routes that ran here from the North to the South and brought in influences of the foreign fashion, which naturally assumed Russian national features in this country.
Lace-making as an official trade in the Vologda Region has existed since 1820. The official research work by Sophia Davydova established that during the serfdom period all the significant landlords’ estates had had lace manufactures, sending their lace works to Petersburg and Moscow. One of such manufactures was founded by the landowner Zasetskaya in Kovyrino Settlement near Vologda in the 1820s. The serfs there were making most delicate laces for trimmings of dresses and underwear, imitating west-European patterns. As time went by the lace-making spread from the landowners’ workshops to folk environment and became one of the folk arts and crafts, which reflected the tastes and demands of the general public in this area.
Some time later Anfia Fyodorovna Bryantseva evsolved remarkable activity in Vologda. The gifted lace-maker got a brilliant idea to combine different manners, bringing together dense lace and lacy grating. This is how the famous and popular Vologda style appeared. Anfia together with her daughter Sophia developed a wide range of original lace patterns and samples, designed and introduced into practice small and large lacy clothes, such as, for example, talmas, mantlets, entire suits, etc. Moreover, they taught lace-making to more than 800 girls and women from Vologda and neighboring villages.
Sources:
vologdalace.ru
visualrian.ru
wadimk.chat.ru
