Handmade Lace is Reason for Stopping in Tepic

This town, founded in 1531 and the capital of the State of Nayarit, is mainly a place where travelers stop for refrescos or lunch. Puerto Vallarta is 105 miles to the northeast and San Blas is about 43 miles to the west.

Most of its buildings, arranged around two public squares, although modern, are a bit run down.

An exception, however, is the Exconvento de la Cruz, a colonial building at the intersection of Calzada de Ejercito and Avenida Mexico.

This impressive structure, with thick stone walls, vaulted ceilings, arched windows, interior courtyard garden and private chapel is Tepic’s pride and joy.

The town’s architectural showplace, it also is a cultural center that supports folkloric and classical ballet companies and a choir. In addition, it houses the main workshop for Encajes de Nayarit, or Laces of Nayarit (tel. 321/3-90-70), a cooperative company partially supported by the state government.

More than 250 local women work full time in a huge, well-lit room producing handmade lace garments and personal or home accessories.

Most of the women, particularly those with young children, work at their homes. But, except during lunch (2 p.m. to 4 p.m.), 20 or more lace-makers work near the sunlit windows or outdoors in the garden. And visitors are welcome to watch.

They work in silence, their concentration focused on the patterns that continually evolve against the cushions they hold on their laps. Pushing, pulling, bobbing and dipping their silk-threaded needles, their hands dance the intricate ballet of lace-making.

Displayed around the room are samples: They include lace collars (from $28) that are short in the front but taper to a deep V in the back, and others that are square shaped and drape off the shoulders (from $58); vests (from $125); blouses (from $140) and lined or unlined jackets (from $160).

Full-length lace shawls cost $125, and two-piece beach bikinis are about $50, with matching hip-hugging shawls $70 and up. Exhibited is a baby doll mannequin, dressed in an elaborate full-length lace Christening gown ($364) with lace cap ($20), booties ($30), bib ($14) and bottle cover ($9). It rests on a lace coverlet ($168) and pillow case ($40). Lace borders ($10) frame family photos, and three-dimensional lace flowers ($6 each) form colorful bouquets.

Prices are reasonable considering the labor involved. The christening gown took about four months of eight-hour days to complete.

The art of lace-making does not have a long history in Nayarit. It began 10 years ago with Sra. Ana Leticia Gonzalez de Castellanos, a housewife and lace-making hobbyist who taught the original 13 employees the craft’s basics.

“The women quickly learned everything I knew, and surpassed me in skill and new patterns,” Ana Leticia said. “But I was not surprised. The majority of people in Nayarit are Huichol Indians who have a great tradition of creating beautiful needlework, mostly in the decorative embroidery of their clothes and beaded belts and bags.

“Though these are not the same techniques as lace-making, the women seem to be able to translate the dexterity of their traditional skills to this new art.”

They bring a unique style and technique to their lace-making, which is a combination of the skills Ana Leticia taught them and the techniques they adapted from their traditional Huichol weaving and embroidery.

Like all lace-makers, they use pillows and straight pins to set their patterns. Classical European lace-making technique, the basis for Ana Leticia’s skills, uses many threads simultaneously worked and woven into one piece. The lace-makers of Nayarit often use just one strand of thread folded back and forth thousands of times.

Nayarit’s lace is colorful. Traditionally, handmade lace is white, beige, sometimes black. But the vests, shawls, blouses, bikinis and other garments produced by Encajes de Nayarit are vivid blues and greens, shocking pinks, rich reds and purples, earth tones, yellow, gold and silver, as well as traditional white, beige and black. Many of the garments are multicolored, with patterns of flowers or fruit woven into the designs.

Lace-makers throughout history have worked anonymously and the women of Nayarit are no different. They do not sign their works of art, but each bears the butterfly-like logo of Encajes de Nayarit, their sign of quality.

Two years ago, the cooperative attracted the attention of Sra. Maria Eugenia Espiriu de Delgado, wife of Nayarit’s governor, who initiated state support of the industry. This has enabled the training program to include about 2,000 women, and to pay employees a higher daily wage (10,400 pesos, or about $3.71 per eight hours) than is offered to men working at nearby factories (8,300 to 8,600 pesos, or about $2.96 to $3.07 per eight hours).

Although the amount may be low by North American standards, in Nayarit it is considered generous.

Though Encajes de Nayarit is beginning to distribute its wares to boutiques in other parts of Mexico, there are no shops where the products can be seen regularly. For now, the only place to acquire these items is here in Tepic.