Center for Embroidery and Textile Arts

Museum - Vieux-Fort

The center was established by the Vieux-Fort association of embroiderers in 1980 at the initiative of the Basse-Terre Chamber of Commerce. Established in the former Fort l'Olive, the aim of the center is to promote traditional embroidery. The embroiderers practice an art that dates from the beginning of the colonization period, when Madame de La Fayolle, a favorite of Queen Anne of Austria, received a letter of recommendation to bring a group of young orphan women to Guadeloupe as brides for the colonists. These young women then initiated this handicraft, which has lasted for more than three centuries. At the center, the embroiderers teach their craft and exhibit their work. In the workshop, all pieces are somehow geometrical because of the perpendicular direction of the warp and the weft. Orange slice designs or mother hen motif, fans or butterflies, checkered squares, thistles, long-armed cross stitch, cross stitch, fan, filet rose, rosette – so many stitches created by nimble fingers embroidering tablecloths, curtains, doilies and baptismal robes. It takes three weeks to finish a bodice and nearly three months for a drawn-thread tablecloth. Open every day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. - Tel: (0)590 92 01 14.