Picot Bigouden: a lace with identity
The "point of Ireland" in Bigouden country
As on the entire southern coast of Finistère, Irish lace has taken root in the Bigouden region, which has been hit hard by the sardine crisis.
Workshops were established in Guilvinec and Ile-Tudy.
All along the Bigouden coast, women and children, including boys before boarding school, produced lace. As in Ireland, a veritable domestic industry developed.
The produce was exchanged at the grocery store for various goods, or collected and resold outside Brittany.
For many families, lacemaking became a supplementary income, and sometimes a meager means of subsistence. It also contributed to social cohesion. Groups of lacemakers were immortalized by numerous photographers, seduced by the "picturesque charm" of the activity.
Birth of the picot bigouden
After World War I , the Cape and Concarneau regions abandoned Irish production. Only the Bigouden people continued, appropriating the technique, adapting it to speed up production, and developing their own unique, graphic style.
In almost every household, women worked with crochet. Thus was born the picot bigouden, a local version of Irish guipure, which became a permanent fixture in the region. The ecru doily became a defining element of its identity.
Bigouden lacemakers sold their produce of placemats, tablecloths, and gloves all along the Atlantic coast and as far away as Paris, Nice, and Geneva. Some made it their sole profession.
The Bigouden picot, implanted deep down, survived the two world wars and crossed the century, by oral transmission, surrounded by a jealously guarded secret.
But this secrecy, and the disinterest of the post-war generations, almost got the better of the know-how. In the 1990s, due to a lack of transmission, the very survival of the technique was threatened.
Saving and renewal
Associations of enthusiasts were then formed and undertook an immense work of collecting and writing, to preserve and transmit the technique.
It was high time. We owe them a lot.
Today, Bigoudènes, whether by birth or by heart, are reappropriating their heritage, reinventing it and preserving the technique.
In 2022, thanks to the initiative of enthusiasts, the picot bigouden was included in the inventory of French Intangible Cultural Heritage, among the skills of embroidery and lace in Brittany.