For Dr. Laura Hutchingame, a Trinity Hall humanities faculty member, history has always been about looking beyond the surface. With a background in art history and a particular interest in the Italian Renaissance, Hutchingame recently published an academic article examining lace and the pattern books used to create it in 17th-century Venice. Her research explores not only how lace was made, but also how publishers marketed these books to women, who were among the primary makers and consumers of lace during the period.
Hutchingame’s interest in Venetian history began when she first visited Italy as a high school student through an AP History trip. As an undergraduate, she spent a semester in Venice and became fascinated by the city’s architecture, art and culture. “I always knew Italian Renaissance art was the thing I wanted to work on,” Hutchingame said. “And I always really liked looking at things that weren’t just paintings,” an interest that eventually led her to lace. Hutchingame earned two master’s degrees in art history before completing her Ph.D. in the field at UCLA. Her research on lace began with her master’s thesis, which focused on lace in Venice. Her recently published article expands on that initial research, taking a closer look at the pattern books used to create lace and, in particular, the ways publishers sought to appeal to the women who would purchase and use them.
Hutchingame discovered that the books reveal a great deal about women, creativity, labor and economics during the period. She argues that publishers deliberately appealed to women through the books’ language and presentation. One of the books she examined uses the voice of Lucretia, an ancient Roman figure associated with virtue. Hutchingame argues that this choice helped create a voice that would resonate with the women the publisher hoped would purchase and use the book. Her research also revealed opportunities for creativity and individual expression within the process of lacemaking. Some of the pattern books encouraged women to modify designs and add their own ideas, giving them opportunities to exercise creativity rather than simply follow instructions. “They were doing a form of targeted ads,” Hutchingame said. “It’s basically just like advertising as we know it today.”
Through her research, Hutchingame also discovered how socioeconomic class shaped women’s experiences with lace. Women wearing lace were often members of the elite class, displaying it on their clothing as a symbol of status, although some elite women also made lace as a creative pastime. By contrast, women of lower economic standing often encountered lacemaking as labor, sometimes under difficult and dangerous conditions. Hutchingame found evidence that women whose families could not afford the dowries required for marriage were sometimes sent to convents, where lacemaking typically took place. While the convents provided a place for these women, the conditions surrounding their work were often less than ideal. “I learned that women of all classes would have had some experience with lace,” Hutchingame said. “It’s this beautiful object, and often, when it was made, it was the result of really harmful labor practices.”
Through her research, Hutchingame also discovered several clear connections between the 17th century and the present day, connections she hopes readers and especially her students will take away from the article. First, the often-harmful labor practices associated with clothing production that remain relevant today, raising questions about who makes the products people buy and under what conditions. Clothing as a status symbol also continues to resonate. Specific products and brands are still used to communicate wealth and social status. “Clothing is really like an art form,” Hutchingame said. “It was and still is a way to show your status and to send a message about who you are and your position in the world.”
Her research also highlights changing ideas about gender and work, even as traditional assumptions about what work belongs to women or men continue to evolve. To her biggest surprise, Hutchingame’s research demonstrates how little aspects of marketing have changed over the centuries. Publishers in Venice understood their audience and developed ways to make their books appealing to the women they hoped would purchase them. “They knew then and they know now that these strategies do work,” she said. “It’s literally what we’re still doing in terms of marketing.”
For Hutchingame, her research is a reminder that history can be found in unexpected places and that looking closely at something as seemingly ordinary as lace can reveal stories about women’s lives, creativity, labor, economics, social status and even advertising. While the past may be centuries away, the ways people create, communicate and respond to the world around them can be surprisingly familiar.
Read Dr. Hutchingame’s full article, The Voice of Lucretia: Lace Pattern Books in Seventeenth-Century Venice, in the Journal of Modern History.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/eprint/DTKHYEKHTBGTTV6VGPIR/full?redirectUri=/doi/epdf/10.1086/742416