Over the centuries, the two regions dominate the production of lace, both renowned for the production were the Upper Loire and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. At the dawn of the industrial revolution, these two regions, whose expertise was the result of a manual secular tradition, were not yet obsolete and were able to adapt to changing mechanical.
Occupation lace 1920.



In 1809, in the vicinity of Nottingham, John Heathcoat, a young engineer, invented the first lace loom comprising a coil and cart. The patent was filed soon. The French customs of the time did not trade with England provided this did not export trades, which arrived on French soil in parts and illegally! This explains their concentration in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais ... Saint-Pierre-lès-Calais was the first city (1809) to have a loom, followed by Caudry in 1820.

In 1830, a Leavers had the idea to combine the technique with mechanical Jacquard John Heathcoat, and thus a trade tulle we could evolve into a true profession lace, to interface with total freedom all reasons imaginable. These are huge machines weighing several tons, the deafening noise forcing workers to wear hearing protection. It is also clear that this change also marks the transition from the lace hands agile worker sturdy shoulders, because to run such monsters great physical strength is needed. Seventeen steps involving seventeen different skills are needed to move from idea to finished product.

Haute-Loire region also great French lace, reached its apogee in the eighteenth century and the nineteenth, is 120 000. The path to the mechanical production in this region do not follow the same path. The starting point is the invention in 1748 by Thomas Wadford of loom weaving, which found traces after Germany. The operating principle is woven into a tubular form of a network of son around a core material variable (non-textile). Perrault Eagle imports from Germany to France the first of these inventions in 1785. It was therefore a weaving loom, consisting of eleven time that the French improved to thirteen and he put the model at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers.