What Is Chemical Lace?

Chemical lace is something that emerges in eastern Switzerland. In the 1880s, manufacturers discover that by embroidering with cotton on a silk ground, you could dissolve the silk ground, but not the cotton embroidery threads. So initially, they're using, I think it's in a chlorine, then they move to caustic soda. And as lace becomes extremely popular in the 19th century, and we said, in the19th century, lace is really exclusively worn by women. Men are no longer wearing lace.