Designer lace [CAD/CAM]

One of England´s oldest industries was also one of the first to take full advantage of the potential of CAD systems. Before the Industrial Revolution, lace was one of Britain´s biggest exports. In areas like Nottinghamshire, before the advent of the first true lacemaking machine-invented by John Leavers in 1813-some small villages were completely dependent on lace production in homes. Machinery brought the prospect of lace for the working classes, but the conviction remained that machine-made lace was not as good as the real thing, and so row upon row of women and girls continued to labour by hand to supply the fashion houses of the day. Now, at last, that perception has disappeared: lacemaking has become a factory process no different, in many ways, to the manufacture of any other commodity used in modern society. In some ways, the industry has even led the way for others: it was one of the first industries to begin to exploit the full potential of CAD systems for customer service