Linens and Lace

Domestic bliss is to be found in a well-stocked linen closet Linens and Lace is about stocking that closet -- and then using its contents to bring comfort and elegance into your home. Tricia Foley, author of the best-selling Having Tea and an expert on fine linens, tells us how to find and evaluate vintage household linens -- the most intimate of antiques. We learn how to judge the age of a piece of fabric, how to spot dams and mends, how to tell machine-made lace from handmade. We learn how to care for our treasures: how to wash, iron, and store even the most delicate scraps of lace. Most of all, we learn, through Lilo Raymond's exquisite photographs, how to use lace and linens at home: An old tablecloth makes a wonderful filigreed curtain against the sun; a star-shaped doily softens the line of a bathroom shelf; a heap of plump little pillows invites us to linger in bed. Every image gives us another inventive and easy way to bring some romance to bed, bath, or table, and a thorough source guide tells us where to find the pieces we'll need (even where to find good contemporary reproductions when antique linens are impractical -- or just too expensive).

For those of us whose fantasy of grown-up life include snowy tablecloths set for dinner, swagged curtains at mullioned windows, and padded clothes hangers trimmed with lace ribbons, Linens and Lace is an essential guidebook.

Tricia Foley, editor-at-large of Victoria magazine, lives with her lifelong collection of vintage household linens in New York City and on Long Island.

Lilo Raymond's photographs are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modem Art the Bibliotheque Nationale, and many other museums, and in her book Revealing Light.

Claire Whitcomb, managing editor of Victoria magazine and coauthor of Oh, Say Can You See, lives in New York City.