What Is A Vandyke Motif?
A vandyke motif, which you will also see as van dyke or Van Dyck, is a decorative edge made of deep, V-shaped or triangular points lined up in a row. Those points, called vandyke points, run along the edge of a fabric, lace, collar, sleeve, or trim. The name comes from the seventeenth-century Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), whose portrait sitters so often wore lace collars with these deeply scalloped points that the look took his name. You will find the vandyke motif across fashion, embroidery, lace, dressmaking, decorative trim, hemlines, and wallpaper, always with that signature scalloped, sawtooth edge.
We will look at where the name and shape come from, what makes the design recognizable, how it developed over time, how it appears in modern fashion and textiles, and how it connects to embroidery, sewing, lace, and wallpaper.
What is a vandyke motif?
It is a decorative shape made of deeply indented, V-shaped or triangular points arranged in a row along an edge or border. The wine red velvet at the top of this page shows it well, each deep point edged in gold braid. Two straight sides fall to a sharp tip and climb back into the next, giving the edge its deeply scalloped, sawtooth look.
Mostly it lives on trim, at the edge of a dress or a collar. Sleeves and hems carry it too (plain textiles, now and then). Depth keeps it apart from a rounded scallop or a plain zigzag. A true vandyke edge has deep, sharp points, often long ones, never shallow nicks.
Dressmakers have more than one way to make it. The points can be cut straight into the cloth for a pointed hem or a lace edge, or worked on in thread, which is all vandyke embroidery means. Some skip both and applique a separate band of trim instead. The method shifts the effect a little, never the basic idea.
Where does the vandyke name come from?
From the painter. Anthony van Dyck was the leading court portraitist of his age and served as principal painter to Charles I of England. Canvas after canvas shows his elegant sitters in the deeply pointed lace collars then in fashion.
The collars became so tied to the figures in his portraits that the pointed lace was christened the vandyke collar, and its V-shaped points the vandyke points. Lace wasn't the end of it. The neat pointed beard his subjects so often wore is a vandyke beard (a beard, of all things), and the deep brown pigment of his palette goes by vandyke brown.
Every one of those names leads back to one artist and the look of his sitters.
What makes the vandyke design recognizable?
The depth and sharpness of the points. Every triangle runs deep, often long, plunging well into the cloth instead of nicking it. And the row repeats evenly.
Its two nearest cousins make the case. A scallop is rounded. The plain zigzag is angular, sure, but shallow; it barely bites. Next to them the vandyke looks bolder than both and more elegant (almost heraldic, to our eye).
However it was made, those deep, even Vs are the signature.
How did the vandyke develop over time?
It began as seventeenth-century lace. Those were the collars van Dyck's sitters wore canvas after canvas, and from then on the motif kept surfacing whenever fashion got nostalgic for that romantic, cavalier elegance.
The painter had been dead close to two hundred years when the Romantic movement of the 1820s and 1830s went looking for him and revived deeply pointed vandyke collars and hems. Victorian dressmakers ran with it and used the edge widely on collars and cuffs. Flounces too, where all those points get loud.
Twentieth-century lace and bridalwear kept coming back to it, while theatrical costume brought it out any time a historical or romantic note was wanted (which, if you ask us, is the real reason it lasts). It has never fully left the dressmaker's repertoire, either: a pointed hem or vandyke trim is still a quick way to add drama to an edge.
How is the vandyke used in modern fashion and textiles?
It still earns its keep along edges. On clothes that mostly means pointed hems on skirts and dresses. Collars and cuffs get it as decoration, and bridal and evening lace leans hard on those deep points.
Dressmakers and embroiderers treat the vandyke as a standard edge finish, by hand or machine. In lace-making the deeply pointed border is a classic form.
Off the body it turns up as a decorative band on linens and curtains (lampshades, too). We think it looks best on wallpaper, though, where a printed or block-edged border of points makes a crisp, graphic frieze.
How does the vandyke connect to embroidery, lace, and wallpaper?
Through the edge, in every case. Embroiderers and lacemakers work the row of points in thread as a vandyke edging, a traditional way to finish a hem or a panel.
Lace is where it started. The deeply pointed border is a long-established decorative edge, central to the very collars that gave the motif its name.
On wallpaper the shape becomes a border print or a block-edged frieze. In a dining room papered up to the chair rail, a vandyke band along that rail gives the paper a crisp, finished edge (we'd pick that over the cornice or the top of the wall, since you see the points up close). Whatever the material, the deep, repeating V stays constant. Browse border and geometric designs at William Morris Wallpaper Co.
Vandyke motif questions
What is a vandyke motif?
It is a decorative edge of deep, V-shaped or triangular points arranged in a row, making a scalloped, sawtooth border. Van Dyck painted the pointed lace collars so often that their points took his name.
Where does the vandyke name come from?
From the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), court painter to Charles I, whose portrait figures wore deeply pointed lace collars. Oddly, it didn't stop at lace, since there's a vandyke beard and a vandyke brown pigment as well.
What makes a vandyke edge different from a scallop?
Depth and shape. A scallop curves, while a vandyke drops into deep, sharp triangles. Shallow points muddy it, since strictly speaking those sit closer to a zigzag.
How is the vandyke used today?
On pointed hems, collars, and cuffs, in bridal and evening lace, as an embroidery and dressmaking edge finish, and as a printed border on linens, lampshades, and wallpaper. Our favorite is still the wallpaper border, which lends that crisp, slightly historical drama to a whole room.
What is vandyke embroidery?
It is embroidery that works the row of deep V-shaped points in thread, by hand or machine, as a decorative edge on a hem or panel. One embroidery stitch even shares the name: vandyke stitch.
How did the vandyke develop over time?
From seventeenth-century lace collars it was revived in the Romantic 1820s and 1830s and used widely in Victorian dressmaking, then recurred through the twentieth century in lace, bridalwear, and costume whenever a romantic or historical look was wanted. Not bad for a shape named after a painter who died in 1641.
How does the vandyke appear on wallpaper?
As a border print or block-edged frieze, a band of even, deep points running along a cornice, chair rail, or the top of a papered wall. A chair rail suits it best, framing a plainer field with a crisp, graphic line.
Where can I buy vandyke-influenced wallpaper?
You can browse border and geometric designs at William Morris Wallpaper Co. Torn between a border and an allover geometric? Compare them side by side.
