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The patience of the loom
Real Chantilly lace is woven on a Leavers loom — a machine that has not changed in any meaningful way since 1813. There are perhaps fifty Leavers looms still in operation, mostly in the small French town of Calais. Each square metre of true Chantilly takes three to five hours to make.
Most of what you find labelled 'Chantilly' on the high street is a chemical lace — a cheaper imitation pressed onto a dissolvable backing, then chemically eaten away. It looks similar in a photograph. It feels wrong on the body.
We use Leavers Chantilly for our Hairline pieces. It costs roughly thirty times what a chemical lace would. Worth it, for a material that you can wear for ten years.