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Calais

The Cité de la Dentelle et de la Mode in Calais

Ten-tonne looms, running, in the very factory where they’ve always stood

The Cité internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode, on the quayside in Calais
Photo: Serge Ottaviani, source, CC BY-SA 3.0

The essentials

Where
Calais
How long
Two hours
Price
Charged
  • Former factory
  • Leavers looms
  • Haute couture
  • Indoors
What to do in Calais?

For more than a century, Calais was the world capital of machine-made lace. The technique arrived from England in the early 19th century, smuggled in as spare parts, and it kept the town going.

The museum is housed in a genuine 19th-century lace factory, which is what sets it apart from a museum of display cases: the machines are exactly where they've always been.

The Leavers loom

It's the centrepiece. A Leavers loom weighs around ten tonnes, stands a storey tall, and produces lace of a fineness modern machines can't match. It's set running during the visit — the noise is part of the explanation.

Seeing it, you understand why this know-how has survived: it can't be replaced, only passed on. Haute couture houses still source their lace here.

What else you’ll see

  • Fashion and lingerie collections, from the 19th century to today
  • Techniques, from hand-made lace to machine lace
  • Contemporary haute couture pieces
  • Temporary exhibitions, often fashion-related

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    3 activities to book

    What activities to do in Calais?

    Our favourite

    To see the seafront from the back of a machine

    Une promenade sur le Dragon

    The Dragon rides along the seafront with its passengers. Places sell out fast in season: check the schedule before you come, not when you arrive.

    45 min · booking required

    For an afternoon with nothing to book

    La plage et le skatepark

    Calais beach is huge and edged by a skatepark. From there, you can watch ferries coming and going all day.

    Free · open access

    Our 3 restaurants

    Where to eat in Calais?

    Our favourite

    A table laid at the Aquar'Aile restaurant, facing Calais harbour

    For the view over the Strait of Dover

    Aquar'aile

    Rue Jean-Moulin, up on the heights, on the seafront side.

    255 rue Jean-Moulin, Calais

    To eat on Place d'Armes

    L'Ardoise

    At the foot of the watchtower, on the old town's central square.

    29 Place d'Armes, Calais

    For a table by the basin

    Le Channel

    Boulevard de la Résistance, between the town centre and the harbour.

    3 boulevard de la Résistance, Calais

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