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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Jess Cartner-Morley

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: when it comes to lace, it’s all about the trimmings

A young woman with long dark hair and red lipstick, wearing a baggy light brown jumper, a cream silky skirt with black lace trim, and leopard-print heeled sandals, standing against a deep orange background
Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Photograph: David Newby/The Guardian

Sometimes a little goes a long way. This is true for Tabasco on eggs, for fragrance in an elevator, for confidence in the karaoke booth, and it is also, I have belatedly realised, the secret of how to wear lace.

All these years, I’ve been getting lace wrong by wearing too much of it. Killing it with overenthusiasm. Lace is beautiful stuff: delicate and romantic. Look closely at it and you will see tiny motifs and patterns, flowers and symbols, crafted in miniature like secret messages. Lace has drama: it is the fabric of marriages, funerals and christenings, after all. And it can switch vibes: white is chaste, red is raunchy, black is sophisticated. Lace has it all going on.

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