Veruschka's Secret

By MARK ELLWOOD
THE NEW YORK TIMES

May 15, 2005

Three years ago, the women of Koniakow, a small village in southwest Poland (the country's lacemaking center), had a knotty problem: no orders. Driven by necessity, they started producing lacy thongs that were sold to tourists at the nearby ski resorts. A collective was formed to sell the lingerie online (www.koniakow.com), and orders began pouring in from as far away as Japan.But the story doesn't stop there. First, the National Folk Art Society started legal proceedings, claiming that the women were sullying the town's storied lacemaking reputation. Then the local priest took to listing suspected thong makers in his weekly Sunday sermons. No word yet on how many have repented.

Polish lace makers at odds over recent switch to G-strings

By Jabeen Bhatti
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

June 4, 2004

KONIAKOW, Poland – For two centuries, the women of this small Silesian highlands town have hooked thread in intricate crochet patterns to create lace tablecloths and altar ornaments coveted by royalty across Europe.

It was an art taught by mothers to daughters, done at home after the daily farming chores were finished, bringing honor and income to the 500-year-old village in southwest Poland still traversed by horse-drawn carts.

Then came G-strings. Last fall, some lace makers trying to earn money spun a racy twist to the art, deciding that underwear would sell better than doilies. Since, the town of 3,000 has been in an uproar, neighbor pitted against neighbor, over the "stringi," Polish for string.

"Lace making has always been a way for people to earn money here," says Teresa Stanko, the 56-year-old mayor of the village in a strongly conservative part of Poland that produced Pope John Paul II. "But since the stringi thing started, the community has been divided: about money, about morality, about tradition," the mayor says.

Some traditional lace makers accuse the renegade lace makers of greed. Others say the thongs defile tradition, are indecent and promote sex. "Our lace graces Polish altars, the office of our president and that of the holy pope in Rome," says Helena Kamieniarz, 73, the president of a local craft guild of lace makers who has been working with lace for six decades. "And suddenly, our lace is turning up – I don't dare say where. How did the lace makers of Koniakow come to this?"

"Times are tough," said Zuzanna Gwarek, who runs a lace gallery on the town's main street. She reached under a pile of ivory tablecloths to pull out white lace G-strings hidden there. "Handkerchiefs and tablecloths don't sell well."

Lace making in Koniakow began in the 19th century when young women began creating caps of white lace to don after their weddings. Soon after, say lace makers, women in the town began to weave tablecloths, altar ornaments, clergy robe collars and other ornaments that adorn Polish religious and family occasions, as a way to supplement their income. Like heirlooms, patterns and lace needles passed through generations.

During communist times, business was good. The community was supported by the state in official craft guilds and subsidized as a nationally recognized art. Orders poured in from state-run stores, prominent officials wanting to use them to present as official gifts and clergy who used the lace in ceremonies and on their clothing.

Things changed when communism collapsed in the late 1980s. The government subsidies stopped and state-store orders dried up. Borders opened to influence and products from the West. People became poorer as they lost state jobs in the former planned-economy.

Desperate to save a dying tradition and earn money in a region that scrapes by on agriculture, some lace makers joked last year that sexy would sell better, says Malgorzata Stanaszek, 30, who has been making lace since she was 7.

The scanty underwear some lace makers already were quietly making for themselves started stirring local debate in January.

That is when Sergiusz Kozubek, 26, who created the town's Web site, began offering the thongs on the site for about $21. Each pair can be made to a customer's specifications of color and design, complete with a personalized name on the front.

The G-strings clearly bring in more money than the traditional pieces – a big appeal in a town that only got indoor plumbing in the past decade. Local lace-makers say a large tablecloth takes about five months to make and can fetch about $120, or $24 a month. A lace maker can make a thong in one day and earn about $73 to $110 a month, in a community where most residents earn about $244 a month.

Sex and the Village: Koniakow Lace Underwear

MALGORZATA STANASZEK
RADIO POLONIA

Koniakow is village dating back to the 16th century, situated in the highland region of Silesia, southern Poland. In the 19th century Koniakow became famous for its crocheted lace, and the round white or cream lace tablecloth became a trademark. Tablecloths and altarcloths from Koniakow have made their way to royal owners around the world but, as Elżbieta Krajewska found, there is another new and thriving strand to the Koniaków lace industry.

‘The idea started off with a joke. Someone said that our laces weren’t selling because they’re not really affordable and why don’t we start making knickers – thongs, so the women started to make thongs. ‘
Sergiusz Kozubek runs the Koniakow website…

‘The whole idea took off about a year ago with an article in a popular women’s magazine. There was suddenly a big demand for Koniakow handmade lace thongs. I run the official web site of Koniakow, so I decided to stare the shop. There are photographs of items you can buy. I take in the orders and I hand them over to the ladies who make lace. And that’s it.’
The thongs have been gathering limelight, made as they are in a tradition that reaches to the 19th century… says Malgorzata Stanaszek

‘Oh yes, the patterns come down from generations to generations. Mainly young women order them but also the older ones: anything to be attractive to men! But some of the lacemakers won’t make them because they say it’s a profanation of the tradition.’

Still, just how popular is lace underwear from Koniakow was borne out by a project launched via the website… Sergiusz Kozubek again:

‘We’ve just closed a competititon for an advertising slogan for lace thongs, and the competition was actually won by a man. We have sent him a set of handmade Koniakow underwear.’

Koniakow still makes traditional laces, starting with the tablecloths which made the place famous, through dresses, gloves, curtains, cuffs and collars and Christmas ornaments. But that part of the industry nowadays seems to be – dare I say it – stringing along… in the company of the handmade lace Koniakow thong.

Pope's altar cloth makers turn to a more profitable line - thongs

By Hilary Davies
Koniakow, Poland

08 August 2004

The Polish village of Koniakow is not its former serene self. Is the reason bitter wartime memories or the legacy of 50 years of Communist rule? No. It is underwear. Very skimpy, very tight underwear.

For hundreds of years the local lace-making grannies have been crocheting altar cloths and Roman Catholic vestments, including one altar cloth for the Pope. But some have switched production in rather a dramatic fashion. They have started making thongs - and the Church is not happy about it. So unhappy, in fact, that the local priest has even been naming and shaming the thong-makers in church on Sundays.

Traditionalists agree with this tough line. At the village's one-room lace museum, Mieczyslaw Kamieniarz fumed: "All of Koniakow is ashamed." He points to the walls of the museum, which are papered with the awards his wife's lacework has won. "Just think, we've made Koniakow lace for altar cloths, priests' robes, even the Pope himself. And now people are going to wear Koniakow lace on their arses," he said.

The makers of the stringi, as they are known, are unabashed. After all, business is booming. Malgorzata Stanaszek, a lace maker in her twenties, set up a production company and its website now has orders flooding in from as far away as the US and Japan.

Commercial success, however, cannot mask a certain reticence to talk among the stringi makers. One, in her 60s, didn't want to give her name, but behind the closed doors of her wooden hut she tipped a colourful pile of exquisitely crafted thongs on to the table. "We all make them, but a lot of women are afraid to admit it," she said. "They are afraid of having their names called out in church."

Irena, whose daughter is working as a cleaning lady in Britain, is not intimidated. "I can use the money," she said. "Nowadays you can see bare bottoms all over the TV anyway."

Another, Teresa, said: "If we listened to everything the priest says, we wouldn't earn a penny. Anyway, he'll have to come to terms with it soon. It's the stringi that are funding his contributions."

Until 1989, the old regime's support for "folk craft" meant the village lace-makers enjoyed a regular income stocking state-owned handicraft shops. But since the shops were privatised, business has fallen away and the Church's demand for altar cloths and decorations is strong enough to benefit only a lucky few. Hence the stringi - decadent but profitable.

Lace thongs tangle with Polish town's traditions
By making undies instead of religious items, business booms, but controversy breaks out

By Tom Hundley
CHICAGO TRIBUNE (USA)

Published March 7, 2004

KONIAKOW, Poland -- The delicate art of lacemaking, which brought fame and pride to this village perched on the slopes of the Beskid Mountains of southern Poland, was in danger of extinction.

The skills that had been passed down through the generations, from mother to daughter, were still in abundance, but the market--mainly clerical vestments and household decorations--was disappearing.

Then along came the thong.

The unlikely confluence of traditional lace, Internet marketing and man's apparently boundless desire to buy something skimpy and sexy for his girlfriend or wife has dramatically revived Koniakow's lacemaking industry.

"We weren't selling much lace, so we had to think of something," said Malgorzata Stanaszek, 30, who, like almost all of the women in the village, has been making lace since childhood.

"We asked ourselves, `What can we make that would be more marketable?'" added her sister Teresa Matuszna, 29.

The answer was the thong.

"It wasn't one woman's idea. It was more like a collective idea," Stanaszek said.

That was about two years ago. The women in the village started turning out thongs and sold them through a kind of local cooperative. Sales were brisk.

A few months ago, Stanaszek and Matuszna took their lace undies online (www.koniakow.com). Since then, orders have been pouring in from Germany, France, Switzerland and, after a visit from Japanese television, the Far East.

Stanaszek said she has a backlog of orders big enough to keep four lacemakers busy into the spring. Not surprisingly, most of the Internet orders are from men. Female purchasers tend to be over 40 and into the larger sizes, she added.

The unexpected boom in lacemaking has lifted the economy in a town that scrapes by on agriculture, a dying woolen industry and a few tourists drawn to nearby ski resorts. But the new prosperity has not been without controversy.

Helena Kamieniarz, the regional head of the national folk art society, has filed a lawsuit, arguing that the making of thongs had "disgraced" Koniakow's good name and "profaned" its lacemaking tradition.

Indeed, before thongs-- and the similarly minimalist bras that accompany them--Koniakow's lacemaking was squarely in the realm of the sacred. A large portion of its output went to the Roman Catholic Church, for years the central institution in Polish life.

The surplice and alb that priests wear are usually lace-trimmed, and Koniakow lace was long considered the finest. Polish altars are decorated with lace cloths, and the cloth used to cover the chalice is often trimmed with lace. Christenings, first communions and weddings are also lacy occasions.

As a young cardinal in nearby Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II, gave a big boost to Polish lacemakers by reviving the Feast of Corpus Christi as a major religious holiday. The traditional national costumes worn by women and girls for Corpus Christi processions are trimmed with lace. Not long ago, Stanaszek and Matuszna joined others from their parish on a journey to Rome to present the pope with an example of Koniakow lace.

These days the village has about 4,000 residents, and, according to the sisters, almost all of the women are involved in lacemaking.

"There are men who do it too, but they don't like to admit it," said Matuszna.

"It's the grandmas and mamas who teach it to their daughters. You have got to teach them when they are 6 or 7 years old because that's when the hands are the most agile. If you are an adult, it's too late. You will never learn," her sister added.

Unique family designs are passed down through the generations, as are the special hooks used to make lace. A lost or broken hook is a catastrophe: It can take months to get used to a new one, the sisters said.

Despite the profits, lacemaking in Koniakow is still treated as a spare-time activity. Stanaszek, who has two small children, tends to her chores on the family's farm before heading to her job at a meat store. She does her lacemaking "in between."

It usually takes about a day--"depending on my mood"--to turn out a thong, she said.

Many of the older women in Koniakow have stuck with making traditional items such as clerical vestments and tablecloths. But almost all the younger women have switched to the stringi, as the thong or g-string is called in Polish.

Stanaszek and Matuszna scoff at the cheap synthetic stuff made by machines. They said that the handmade lace thongs are much more durable--and more important--don't itch.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune