Starting from the moment Prada opening shape appears, the fall and winter of 2008 is doomed to belong to the lace of the season. And you know, all these beautiful lace come from a quiet mountain town an hour's drive from Zurich, St. Gallen. St.Gallen in Switzerland is a quiet mountain town an hour's drive from Zurich. Surrounded by mountains, picturesque, unlike the breeding ground for a hotbed of fashion. However, for decades, fashion designers followed, in January 2008, Prada sent here to find the right autumn and winter series for the fabric. Perhaps you do not know, St. Gallen known for embroidery (locally known as "St. Gallen lace"), was once the richest city in Switzerland. "That day was January 17," recalls Emanuel Forster, the president and fourth generation descendant of Forster Rohner Embroidery, who showed Prada's design team a set of embroidery in the library. A month later on February 19, lace from St. Gallen in an unprecedented high profile appeared in Prada's Milan press conference, a total of 42 sets of apparel are almost all used lace. In fact, Lace often appears this season, from Proenza Schouler in New York to Roberto Cavalli and Dolce & Gabbana in Milan to Givenchy and Alexander McQueen in Paris. But Prada's unique lace: it is dense and dense, large and detailed suit color, slightly different pattern, the color of copper, black, beige, orange and sky blue, looks a little old-fashioned, but very erotic means. Here, the lace is no longer the usual feminine details, but the anti-off to become a full-length long-sleeved dress, an entire shirt, with a short skirt and knee-length skirts, handbags, and then sublimated into a loud fashion declaration. There are other themes in Prada's series, but who still remember them? Starting from the moment the opening shape appears, the fall and winter of 2008 is doomed to belong to the lace of the season. 250 years of embroidery Traditional embroidery was introduced from Switzerland into Switzerland around 1753, before St. Gallen produced superior linen. The sturdy fabric woven from natural linen twine is called "white gold" by the locals not only because of its gold-like quality, but also because it brings tremendous wealth to the city. However, really make this town widely known, or embroidery. By the late 18th century, St Gallen's embroidery industry was well established. Hundreds of specialist embroidery textile suppliers came into being, with about 40,000 employed handicrafts. At its peak, St. Gallen accounted for 18% of all Swiss exports and half the global production of embroidery; only the first embroidery workshops survived to this day. Bischoff Textile is one of the top three embroidery companies in St. Gallen today. Looking out from the window of the office, you can see a football field where the fabric bleaching field used to be. Bischoff offers embroidery for brands such as YvesSaint Lauent, Givenchy and La Perla, and its popularity comes from an unbelievably-hidden archive of embroidery samples dating back to the 15th century. They are most likely completed by candlelight in the farmhouse cellar. Because of the similar shape, many people think that lace is embroidery, in fact, they are different. Embroidery is in the cloth with silk sewing patterns, and lace is in accordance with a certain pattern woven from silk. The most common and cheap embroidery is the "BroderieAnglaise," which is the typical hollowing of the eye; and the color of the "Guipure" is much more complex. Water-soluble embroidery is usually used silk embroidery on the cotton cloth, the use of two materials of different solubility, water-soluble embroidered cloth can be washed away chemicals, leaving only the embroidery part, it also has "pseudo-lace" said. Yesterday's embroidery hand embroidery machine was introduced to Switzerland in the late 1820s, and in less than 100 years all the water-soluble embroidery was machine-produced. With the development of science and technology, the rate of machine operation has doubled and the sacrifice is the precision of embroidery. Max Hungerbühler, president of Bischoff, showed me a basket-weaving embroidery from the 1930s that recently returned to service for the Swiss apparel brand Akris, with its headquarters in St. Gallen. Compare the original, not difficult to find, the original workmanship superior. "It's a must," Hungerbühler explains. "Those at that time did not have to pay for the cost, and if anyone is willing to pay big bucks today, we can make that same level of embroidery." Emanuel Forster's uncle Tobias still clearly Remember the first meeting with Karl Lagerfeld in the 1970s. "You only do machine embroidery?" Lagerfeld said to him, "I do not want machine embroidery, I just hand-made." It did not take long before there was a series of Chloés complete around Forster's embroidery, just like this year's Prada. According to Forster, the initial attraction to Prada was a light-blue, high-density, water-soluble embroidery from 1961, just like the 1930's basket-weave embroidery, whose high cost made it impossible to produce at the ready-to-wear price. Finally, another relatively simple embroidery from the 1950's that was used by Cristóbal Balenciaga was inspired by the Prada, which inspired Emanuel Forster to create a new flower pattern for the night. "We had to drive to the border and show them the latest samples," Forster said. In Forster's design lab, the buzzing of the embroidery machine next door is endless. There, Prada Lace big big horses are produced, they will appear in your neighborhood Prada store. Today's embroidery A modern embroidery machine to use about 1,000 embroidery needles at the same time, to produce a Prada water soluble embroidery takes about 8 hours. Tobias Forster believes that the reputation of an embroidery company depends mainly on the quality of products and credit, not design. He insisted that there is no design star in the embroidery industry. Perhaps Martin Leuthold is an exception. "A lot of designers come for our archive," Leuthold said. He is the current creative director of the 104-year-old Jakob Schlaepfer embroidery company. Schlaepfer by the industry as "fantasy fabric." Legend has it that while Marc Jacobs was browsing Leuthold's new collection, "But Martin, what can I do with your fabric?" Schlaepfer has a large number of custom-tailored fashion house clients tailor-made for the queen and the princess. In May of this year, Leuthold designed a group of exclusive embroidered fabrics for the queen of Brunei. Other Schlaepfer clients include Chanel, Disney and Cirque du Soleil. Sequin embroidery developed since the 1960s is Schlaepfer's strength. The tortoiseshell sequins Marc Jacobs uses in his early Louis Vuittons collection are Schlaepfer's creations. This season, Leuthold not only designed for the Prada other models of water-soluble embroidery, but also from 60 years Courrèges used samples inspired, designed Miu Miu new Sequin embroidery. The original version is orange and white with blue powder, Miu Miu's new version is burgundy with dark green - "more like camouflage," Leuthold said, "You can not copy the sample in the archive, only to them as inspiration. Plagiarized. "Tobias Forster believes that with the Prada effect, St. Gallen embroidery will usher in a period of high prosperity, but with a large number of plagiarism, the fashion industry will inevitably turn their attention to new areas. For all existing embroidery companies, the huge underwear market is their food and clothing parents, but the main origin of lace underwear is not in Switzerland, but in China. Forster Rohner's China office is located in Suzhou, China's city of embroidery.