Annabel Davidson dives into bridal's most enduring textile: Lace

Within the vast and precious Taonga Māori collection at Te Papa is a small kete woven from houhere or ‘lacebark’, a tree with an inner bark that is so fibrous and delicate it looks like deftly crafted Chantilly. Another kete houhere in Taranaki has ribbons of houhere looped and dyed to create a frilly, chequered bag that wouldn’t look out of place at Matthieu Blazy’s joyous spring/summer 2026 Chanel couture show.

From centuries-old Māori bags to Simone Rocha’s exquisite opening look in London this past February (a concoction of broderie anglaise, embroidery and cutwork on sheer panels), lace is one of fashion’s most enduring textiles, deeply symbolic of bridal wear and christening gowns, and originally a sartorial display of wealth due to the labour-intensive nature of its creation.

It is believed that lace originated in various parts of Europe, but the first lace bobbin pattern books were printed in Venice in 1550. There’s a traditional spiderweb-type lace in Paraguay called Ñandutí, woven on looms in bright colours, a combination of indigenous crafts and the introduction of European needle-lace skills. Known as the queen of lace, Alencon lace is highly textured, usually incorporating floral patterns, and is recognised by UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage as an important traditional skill. The later Renaissance period was a high point for lace, and if you want to really marvel at examples of it, the incredible Jewels of the Renaissance by Yvonne Hackenbroch (Assouline), while concentrating on jewellery in portraiture, is awash with exquisite examples of lace collars, ruffs, and sleeves on quite scary-looking aristocratic sitters.

When Queen Victoria married her beloved Prince Albert in 1840, her white silk wedding gown was trimmed with lace at the neck and sleeves, and she wore a lace veil and flounce over her enormous skirt. The flounce alone employed 200 English lace makers who were otherwise out of work, so the commission by the Crown was partly patriotism to revive a dying industry (the same can be said for the commission of English Spitalfields silk, another industry petering out thanks to the introduction of the power loom) but also to honour the young Queen’s wish to be seen not as a monarch in ermine robes, but a young wife in virginal white. She wore the veil and flounce again throughout her life, including to the wedding of her son, George, over 50 years later.

Wedding veils are one of lace’s most iconic forms, from royalty (Grace Kelly, Kate Middleton) to celebrities (Jackie Kennedy, Hailey Bieber) but veils and trims aren’t the only form lace takes at weddings. Alexandra Daddario’s lace parasol she held for her 2022 New Orleans wedding was heartbreakingly beautiful, and Etsy is awash with exquisite antique white lace fans that would make for eye-catching photo props for brides.

Delicate and fragile, yes, but lace can take the opposite form. Polish street artist NeSpoon has made lace her signature, and she creates enormous murals on buildings around the world based on ornamental lace. She’ll visit local homes to see antique and heirloom laces, then paint them in giant form in extraordinary detail on public spaces, including the illusion of shadow so the buildings look like they’ve been draped in actual textile. So far she has created murals for buildings in Poland, Albania, Italy, China, Scotland, Spain and beyond, citing traditional lace circles as her inspiration, where women would sit and share gossip, problems, and stories while their hands threw wooden lace bobbins around at lightning speed. (Just search for ‘bobbin lace ASMR’ and you’ll find endless videos of wooden bobbins clacking like wind chimes on speed – if you’re into that sort of thing.)

“Lace is one of fashion’s most enduring textiles, deeply symbolic of bridal wear and christening gowns.”

Lace is traditionally made with cotton, silk, and linen thread, but lace crafted from real gold was the ultimate symbol of wealth and status for royalty, nobility, and the clergy up until the 18th century. Gold can be ‘pulled’ through an ever-decreasing size of metal dies until it is thread-thin (there is still a Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers in London which has been around since the 17th century) and this was – and still is in some cases – used to create metallic lace that was priced by weight.

All these European traditions are gathered together in the public’s perception of lace today – romantic, indulgent, traditional, bridal – but for Aotearoa artist Rowan Panther, it is the whenua itself that inspires her sumptuous lace work. Living in Doubtless Bay in the Far North, she grows and harvests harakeke on her land to create muka fibres for her works – delicate but large-scale hand-crafted muka-fibre pieces often incorporating kauri, sterling silver, parau shell, and, in collaboration with artist Neke Moa, pounamu.

"I do it the same way it has been done for hundreds of years," she says of the muka creation process. “You choose the longest, healthiest harakeke leaves, take the spine out, take the edges off, break it down to smaller, more manageable strips. You have to have a feel for it and it comes down to practice.”

It’s not just the white, silky muka thread that Panther prizes for her work – it’s the plant it comes from. “You have your harakeke and you look after it,” she says. “And the relationship that your harakeke has to the whenua is as important as yours is to the harakeke. For me, I approach the bushes very intentionally – I want to honour those plants and make something beautiful out of them.” Of Irish, English, and Samoan heritage, Panther is acutely aware of the gaps in the places to which she whakapapas. “I’ve never really spent any time in England or Ireland, so I don’t feel connected to them. But my mother is part Samoan. I’m trying to make pieces that represent my culture somehow.”

The results are at once familiar and fantastical, a merging of a very traditional European lace making technique with an endemic fibre and a very recognisable Pacifica signature. Panther often leaves loose muka threads at the end of her works as symbols of the partnership she feels with the fibre. She doesn’t use bobbins to make the lace – muka fibres are too short to be wound around the traditional tool, so she has developed more of a braiding method to keep the fibres together. She also uses a mussel shell for all her harakeke harvesting, the traditional method. “You scour a beach to find exactly the right one that fits your palm perfectly. The right one will last for years.”

Ultimately, Panther is using a traditional Māori material to make artworks using an adapted but recognisable European technique, but often with details you might not notice at first. For example, a piece created in 2025 named ‘What We Take’ featured a group of four Kiore (or Pacific rats), which Panther explained are considered culturally important to some iwi, with Ngātiwai as the kaitiaki or guardians of the little creature.

"I’m taking a material and I’m really forcing my outcome onto it," she says. “It’s a plant that is rooted in the whenua. It’s a living being, it’s got a life force, and I take so much control of that when I force it into these intricate patterns, so I love leaving the excess that I haven’t woven as evidence of the part I can’t control. It’s a partnership between myself and the harakeke.”

“A merging of a very traditional European lace making technique with an endemic fibre and a very recognisable Pacifica signature.”

At Anna Miles Gallery in Tamaki Makaurau earlier this year, Panther unveiled her most recent work to a small crowd. Created during the three months of her residency at Colin McCahon House in Titirangi, a ‘necklace’ of sorts – pūhā leaves crafted from muka lace – was shown draped around a guest’s shoulders, a sort of loose adornment in glorious, textural form, in the unmistakable shape of the iconic pūhā plant. Then, she unveiled the ultimate culmination of her lace work, her beginnings as a photographer, and her residence – a ‘salt’ print of a section of pūhā lace, inspired by English photographic pioneer and scientist William Henry Fox Talbot who invented an early form of photographic printing which involved salted paper. It felt like a full-circle moment for Panther who only took up lace because she did a class for fun with the late Alwynne Crowsen, an entirely self-taught lace maker who went on to found New Zealand’s first lace making guild in 1970. Auckland gallery Objectspace held an exhibition of her work in 2008, curated by Anna Miles, and including her Honiton Lace Weta from the 1990s – surely the most glorious example of Aotearoa lace making of the time.

If anyone has taken over Crowsen’s mantle, it’s Panther, who sees no end to where her art form can go. “My plan is to just keep making,” she says. “I work in a very narrow field but I feel like the possibilities are endless. The more you zone in on something the more it expands.”

Panther currently has a research grant working with Pandanus (screwpine), and has pieces in museum collections around the world, including the British Museum. But it’s home that has her heart. “What I’m most proud of is my work in the Auckland Museum,” she says. I’ve always been obsessed with the Pacific Masterpieces gallery, which inspired so much of my aesthetic. They were the first institution that purchased my work. It really is my museum.”


This story was originally published in VEIL Issue Two. Discover this editorial, along with many more inspiring weddings, celebrations, and stories in the full issue. Purchase your copy here.