Lefkara lace

What it is

Lefkara lace is needle lace worked by hand. A woman stitches into cotton cloth, builds the pattern with fine thread, then cuts and draws out certain threads so the design opens up. The craft belongs to Pano Lefkara and Kato Lefkara, two villages in Cyprus. Its usual marks are hemstitch, satin stitch fillings, needlepoint edgings and a narrow range of colour: white, brown and ecru. Motifs are geometric and complicated. UNESCO added the lace to its list of living cultural traditions in 2009.

Stitches and patterns

The earliest Lefkara lace was sewn from white cotton cloth made on the island. The craft grew out of an older embroidery called asproploumia, and several of that older type's stitches are still used. Lacemakers combine stitches with cut openings. Bigger embroideries, called tagiades, sit alongside patterns known as pittota, gyroulota and liminota, and a Venice lace type. The name tagiades comes from the Italian term Punto Tagliato, a cut design that was popular in Italy in the sixteenth century. According to the Cyprus Handicraft Service, more than 650 motifs are known. The best known is potamoi, meaning rivers, formed from triangular zig-zags called kamares, or arcs.

Dowry and livelihood

Lace held a place in family life. A girl was expected to build a large collection of embroidered cloth to show on her wedding day, and this dowry became a measure of her skill. Neighbours competed with one another, and the rivalry pushed the standard of the work upward. Patterns and stitches passed from mother to daughter. Some women earned money from lace. In Pano Lefkara the embroiderers, known as ploumarisses, arranged their work from home, while the men, called kentitarides, travelled as merchants through Europe and Scandinavia to sell it.

A traveller's legend

People in the villages tell a story about Leonardo da Vinci. According to that tradition, he visited Cyprus in the fifteenth century and carried a piece of the lace back to Italy with him. The same account says the cloth he took now decorates the cathedral in Milan. The tale is offered as local tradition, not as recorded fact, and it shows how far the lace travelled. People here have long rated the work of their own hands highly, and the story says so.

Today and change

Lace is no longer made only in the two Lefkara villages. It is produced all over Cyprus today, by home workers and in workshops, and the villages of Pano Lefkara and Kato Lefkara were the largest centres in earlier times. Embroiderers, almost all of them women, still earn part of their living from the craft, as women did in the past. Some want to keep the older designs and methods alive. Printed books of historical patterns help today's lacemakers copy pieces they never learned at home, and new motifs still appear, since each worker adds what her own skill and imagination allow.

How Lefkara lace is kept

A woman works at home, usually by herself, with cotton cloth, needle and thread. She builds the pattern with hemstitch, satin stitch fillings and needlepoint edgings, motif after motif. At some point she cuts the cloth and draws out threads, which opens the design and gives the lace its name. Some pieces are small; others are large embroideries called tagiades. Today many lacemakers follow printed pattern books; in the past a girl learned by watching her mother or a neighbour and then copying what she saw until she could add motifs of her own.

When and where

There is no single day or season for the craft: lacemakers sew through the year, at home and in workshops. The one fixed point in the old calendar was a wedding. A bride was expected to have her embroidered collection finished and ready to display on her wedding day, so much of the stitching was done in the months and years before a marriage.

The lace comes from Pano Lefkara and Kato Lefkara, two villages in Cyprus, and those two places were once the main centres of production. The craft is now practised across the island, and pieces are also sold abroad. In earlier centuries the merchants of Lefkara carried the work through Europe and as far as Scandinavia, so buyers far from Cyprus have long known it.

What Lefkara lace means

For the families who made it, lace was proof of patience and skill. A daughter's dowry showed what she could do with her hands, and it carried her mother's teaching into a new household. That is why the motifs were repeated so faithfully and why neighbours compared their work. The lace also stood for the village itself when it travelled: a piece of Cyprus in a merchant's pack. People in Lefkara still speak of it as something their own women made and their own men sold.

Questions people ask about Lefkara lace

See also

Tush kyizAn embroidered wall hanging made for a child's wedding in Kyrgyz and Kazakh homesIkatA resist-dyeing craft from Southeast Asia, where yarns are tied and dyed before weavingChinese knottingA folk craft of cord tied into lucky shapes, made in China and given as charmsPhulkariGeometric and floral threadwork embroidered by Punjabi women on handwoven cotton.

Good reading and sources

• Lefkara laces or LefkaritikaUNESCO, Heritage listing
• Lefkara laces or LefkaritikaUNESCO, Article

• Lefkara lace on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.