The family that turns hundred-year-old sheets into wedding dresses

Why does a family continue to work with centuries-old fabrics when everyone consumes new clothes that may not even last a year in the closet? In an era dominated by Shein and Temu – among other fast-fashion giants – there is a shop in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter that defies this logic and works in the exact opposite direction. At L’Arca, sheets, bedspreads, and curtains from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are transformed into wedding dresses or pieces of ready-to-wear. Its raw material is not just quality cotton, silk or linen: it is time. “It is part of a history and we are only writing a new chapter,” summarizes Carmina Pairet, one of the current managers of the space she shares with her sister Nina Balmes.This way of understanding fashion is not a recent trend, but the result of two family lines – one with roots in Maresme and the other in Garrotxa – that have revolved around lace for almost two centuries. The exhibition Treasures of L'Arca, which this year is hosted by the Museum of Arenys de Mar, recovers this history and shows how lace was much more than a decorative element: it also constituted a powerful industry, a business with international projection and a heritage that has managed to reinvent itself. But to understand why a family continues to work today with centuries-old fabrics, we must go back to Catalonia in the mid-19th century.When the tip was luxury, culture, and merchandise

In 1856, at the height of Barcelona's industrial boom, Casa Vives was founded, one of the companies that best understood the commercial potential of Catalan lace. Beyond the romantic imagery that surrounds it, lace was much more than an ornament: it was a prosperous industry, a business with an export vocation, and a product capable of competing in major international markets. The firm's participation in the Universal Exhibitions of Barcelona (1888) and Chicago (1893) is a good example of this. "Lace was luxury, culture, and merchandise," summarizes Carmina Pairet.

That splendor explains why Casa Vives became a benchmark in the sector. The Catalan lace achieved international projection thanks to the combination of artisanal know-how and technical innovation. “This places it within a much broader history, linked to commerce, modernity, and social changes,” details Pairet. Over time, when lace production ceased to be one of the driving forces of Catalan textiles, another family found a new way to keep this legacy alive.Two dynasties, two centuries, and the same thread

The Viñas family, and especially Carmina Viñas, gave a new look to lace. Trips to antique markets in Paris, contact with the trade in antique pieces, and experience in the Adlib fashion of Ibiza awakened in her a fascination for ancient fabrics at a time when hardly anyone claimed them. Back in Barcelona, Carmina began a project based on the recovery and reinterpretation of historical pieces, long before the word vintage entered the everyday vocabulary. "I've always liked to give things a new opportunity. When a piece is good, I don't understand why it should end up forgotten in a closet," recalls Viñas.His story took a definitive turn when he married Carlos Balmes Vives, a descendant of the founding lineage of Casa Vives. That marriage united two stories that until then had progressed in parallel: the industrial legacy of one of the great companies of the Catalan coast and Viñas's contemporary vision, based on recovery, reuse, and creativity. From this encounter was born, in 1983, L'Arca, an establishment that has turned textile heritage into a living material.There is a piece that summarizes this way of understanding the craft: the jacket that Carmina Viñas wore on her wedding day, made with old lace. She still wears it on special occasions.L'Arca: much more than a shop

For decades, L’Arca has become a space where a textile archive, a workshop for the restoration of historical garments, and a bridal gown creation studio coexist. 19th-century lace, antique dresses, embroideries, trimmings, and delicate fabrics await a new opportunity. “Each piece carries the hands of whoever made it and whoever wore it,” summarizes Carmina Pairet.This unique combination has made L'Arca a reference point for costume designers, collectors, creators, and designers from all over the world. Pieces from its archive have ended up in productions such as Titanic and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and creators such as John Galliano and Jean-Paul Gaultier or artists such as Norma Duval, Paloma San Basilio, and Rosa Maria Sardà have also turned to its fabrics. But L'Arca's prestige is not found as much in the famous names as in its way of understanding heritage: not as a museum piece, but as a material that continues to generate new stories.

Today, L’Arca’s philosophy is also translated into the bridal line, led by Nina Balmes. “More and more women are looking for a unique dress that has a story behind it. They want to be moved by the piece even before putting it on,” she explains. Each dress is born from a double dialogue: with the bride who will wear it and with the fabrics that will give it shape. The process begins by listening to the bride and continues in the workshop, where a unique pattern is drawn and worked on by hand using lace, silks, and embroideries from L'Arca's archives. “We recover dresses or fabrics from our archive and study them to understand what can be preserved: a lace, a silk, an embroidery... From here we transform them into a new piece that maintains the emotional value of the original,” explains Balmes. For her, this is precisely the reason why the craft remains alive: “If we had wanted to preserve the lace exactly as it was fifty years ago, it would probably have disappeared. There is respect for the hands that created these pieces, but also freedom to reinterpret them. Transformation is not about imposing, but about dialoguing with the material.”Heritage only survives if it transforms

Far from becoming a museum piece, lace continues to awaken the interest of new generations of designers and artists, who reinterpret it from contemporary languages. “Young people no longer associate it only with a romantic idea. They bring it to more current, even conceptual, fields, and that keeps it alive,” explains Nina Balmes.This route is precisely what Treasures of the Ark proposes, the exhibition that the Museum of Arenys de Mar dedicates to almost two centuries of Catalan lace history through Casa Vives, the trajectory of Carmina Viñas and the project that today her daughters Carmina Pairet and Nina Balmes continue. The exhibition can be visited until December 20 and brings together historical pieces from the 19th century to current creations that demonstrate that this heritage still has a lot to say. “I like to think that we circulate them. The pieces make sense when they are looked at again, worn and reinterpreted,” she concludes.