How we choose our lace
Dainty, elegant and ethereal - lace fabric makes up the backbone of most our bralette designs, which is why our production team spends most of their time sorting through lace samples, comparing between fabrics, then selecting the best ones to be used on our bralettes.
The first thing many women think of when it comes to lace is that it’s unsuitable for sensitive skin, or that it causes skin to itch. While that may be true if the lace is poorly made or is dyed with harsh chemicals, a good piece of lace fabric should be soft to the touch and feel like silk on skin.
The Stretch Test
The beauty of bralettes lies in the face that it’s super comfortable to wear and that the material is stretchy enough to accommodate 1-2 sizing changes. That’s why testing the stretch of the lace is of utmost importance.
Too stretchy and the bralette feels unsupportive and loose no matter how much you size down. Too firm and the bralette won’t provide enough stretch for comfort. Imagine the tightness around your ribcage after a full meal - that’s what happens when fabric or lace used is too firm.
We have a secret formula in choosing lace with the perfect stretch, which is why most of the bralettes you wear generally feel the same - or equally comfortable no matter what design you choose.
To accommodate a beautiful lace pattern that’s less stretchy, we make changes to the design. For example, only using lace at the cups as opposed to adding them to the sides - this helps maintain stretch and comfort.
Pattern
If you’ve noticed, a piece of lace can have the same colour, but vastly different lace patterns. This gives the entire design a whole new look. We tend to separate our pattern choices into the more feminine and classic category and the more alternative types.
For example, the lace on our Head Over Heels bralette is more edgy and hence is paired in a racerback style to retain the most of the pattern visibility.
Other patterns, like repetitive ones, are made into triangle bralettes as the entire lace piece can be broken up without causing any disruptions to its aesthetics. We keep a lookout for unique patterns to break up the monotony.
Colour
Dual tone lace
Most of the lace produced are single toned, meaning that there’s only 1 colour in the entire lace pattern. Once in a while we’ll chance upon dual tone lace like the one in the pictures above. Dual tone lace pieces have their colours decided upon during the actual production of the lace, which makes them more difficult to customize as compared to a single tone lace piece.
Single tone lace
It can be rare to come across coloured lace as manufacturers usually produce them in standard black and white offerings which have greater demand. Some of our lace pieces are dyed after production to create a custom colour. For these, we work with small post-processing factories to create a custom dye blend which is then used on the white based lace fabrics.
Small batch dyeing allows us to control the types of dyes used during the process and also ensures that there is no environmentally damaging batch dumping of residual dye materials into water sources. We ensure our fabric dyeing partners do their part by engaging in environmentally friendly production processes.
Source
The creme de la creme of lace comes from France and Italy. However, they are extremely costly and due to the addition of shipping from their origin to our factory in China, they have greater environmental costs as well.
We do work with such lace (they can cost up to $60sgd a meter!) but they are usually used in custom work for brides or as gifts. We try to minimize the import of lace in order to reduce our production carbon footprint.
Most of the lace you see used in our bralettes are either manufactured in Japan or in mainland China. We’ve done a blind test in our office between the different lace and there’s actually minimal difference between the sources. However, French and Italian lace are sometimes more intricate in terms of design.
While lace choice makes up a huge part of deciding the aesthetics of a bralette, there are alot of other aspects that affect that as well. For example, colour pairing and choosing the best silhouette for a particular lace print.
Lace might not be for everyone, and can sometimes be seen as high maintenance, but we always try to procure the most sturdy and durable pieces so they can go a long way without needing any extra care.
Our bralettes are generally machine washable as long as they are placed in a laundry net. Although wear and tear is unavoidable, our lace pieces can last up to 3-4 years with proper care.