Thistle Lace

‘My gramma just went to a rock concert’, shouted our internal voice as we regarded Timorous Beasties’ new line of lace, just off the loom last Monday. Having wanted to revive some of the quieter textile traditions—harris tweed as well as lace—for several years, the Beasties met their opportunity in Morton Young Borland, a lace manufacturer just outside of their native Glasgow—while drinking vodka in Russia of all places. Their collaboration began last January and resulted in three patterns: Floral 01, TK name and Thistle 01 (ck). Most eye catching is Floral 01, which as Ali explained was not entirely planned. “For some reason they made the design only half the width we wanted, so I told them to just enlarge it 200%, which totally horrified them,” refering to the normal judgement of quality lace’s soft line and fine detail. Instead, Floral 01 has a stocky robustness that’s a very 21st century mashup of tea cozy-meets-heavy-metal.