Precious lace
- Francesca revives ancient pieces
- She keeps the needle lace technique alive
- She learned her craft from her mother and grandmother
Deeply rooted in her land’s traditions, Francesca Bencivenni learned embroidery and lacemaking from her mother and her skilled grandmother in San Giovanni in Persiceto, close to Bologna. She began to develop a passion for these ancient crafts when she was just three years old. Later, she decided to attend courses in bobbin lacemaking, cutwork and then thanks to the renowned Aemilia Ars school, she came to specialise in the ancient needle lace technique. Today, she keeps alive the precious technique of “punto in aere” (the air stitch) as it was called during the Renaissance, or Aemilia Ars stitch, creating her own decorative pieces, reproducing old historic patterns and teaching in schools and privately all over Italy.
INTERVIEW
After years pursuing it as a passion, I decided to start a business in this field after a turning point in 2014. I was asked to reproduce a detail from the lost Vanderbilt tablecloth, The Peacoks Walk, for a great Liberty Style exhibition in Forlì . Since then I have never stopped making lace.
It means teaching the youngest generations, transmiting and preserving a very ancient and sophisticated craft. Personally speaking, it means creating pieces from nothing, just using a needle, a thread and my hands. It astonishes me what can be made with basic tools.
Unfortunately it is: that’s why it’s so important to take it into the schools and into the fashion academies, to train people. We need to make it known in new and different ways: it’s a challenging and fascinating craft, not just a bizarre hobby for our spare time.
The young are the solution: full of enthusiasm and respect, they wish to learn needle lace making to incorporate it into their professional paths. I think this is the right way to give the craft value and to promote it, at the same time it helps young people to build their careers.
