In 1980, Philadelphia University came into possession of an extensive collection of lace samples from the Quaker Lace Co., once a successful Kensington manufacturer.

Included in that collection were hundreds of original sketches by Quaker Lace designer Frederick Charles Vessey.

In 2006, the university's Design Center received a grant from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, allowing the creation of an interpretive initiative titled The Fabric of Philadelphia, a collaboration between the center and area museums, libraries, businesses and residents designed to highlight the region's textile past.

And on Sept. 24, everything will finally come together.

Through April 3, 2010, the center will host Lace In Translation, a design exhibition inspired by the Quaker Lace designs that showcases works by a European designer, a European design studio, and a Canadian-born artist.

The process began with the Pew grant three years ago, a move that enabled the university to fly in three prospective artists/designers to work on the exhibition, one that has a common theme - lace - but whose final creations are anything but ordinary.

"We're really, really excited about it," Hilary Jay, the center's executive director, said of the exhibition during a visit to the school last week.

Jay said the exhibition is unlike any past exhibits at the school. Carla Bednar, the center's assistant director, said the reason for this is that it was Pew-funded. Most exhibition's are on display for a semester, Bednar said, but this one will be up for six months.

Bednar is equally proud of the exhibition, one that was three years in the making. And the fact that the designs were inspired by the Quaker Lace, she said, is an important aspect.

"It was a key industry of development in many, many neighborhoods," she said of the Quaker Lace Co., which was considered one of the country's premier manufacturers of lace products for the better part of a century.

In the early1990s, the company declared bankruptcy, since many of the department stores that carried its products went under. And while the company is no longer operational, what can't be denied is the impact Quaker Lace made on the industrial age, and now, on a few artists and designers who took the classic look of hand-and-machine woven patterns and created something all their own.

"The show moves through the understanding of mass production back into the handmade," center director Jay states in a promotional video about the exhibition.

Bednar agreed that it's fascinating to see today's artists creating something with their hands once done by machine. One creation includes light baskets resembling bird nests, which hang from the ceiling in the one of the display rooms of the Design Center, a California-style ranch house designed and built in the 1950s that came into the hands of the university in the late 1970s.

Three of the rooms are dedicated to the works of Tord Boontje, a Dutch-born designer who now resides in England. In addition to the hand-crafted light fixtures, Boontje's installation includes laser-cut fabrics, women's eveningwear and lingerie, and an abstract creation that resembles a hammock, made from carbon-based fibers, what Bednar calls "really state-of-the-art materials."

The latter was inspired by spider webs, Bednar said, while the inspiration behind Boontje's overall installation was a bit more intriguing.

According to Bednar, the European designer came up with the idea for his space after dreaming of a woman living in a forest who had nothing but a Hollywood magazine showing women in lace dresses. Having no money, the woman set out to make her own creations. During the exhibition, the middle room of Boontje's installation will have a television on the wall playing images of a woman in the woods donning outfits made of various organic materials.

The third room in Boontje's part of the exhibition includes curtains made of Raffia, a type of Indonesian grass. For this, students, as well as Bednar, got involved. Last winter, Bednar created pen-and-paper samples of designs that could be incorporated into the curtains. She then solicited the help of around 18 design students, who took her design and made it a reality. Eventually, the flower or leaf-like designs were stitched together and now make up the large curtain decorating the bay window.

"It's a contemporary spin on a lace curtain," Bednar said.

The second designer featured in the exhibition is Cal Lane, whom the center learned about through one of her other installations. For this installation, Lane took to the center's back yard, draping a plywood-covered swimming pool with black fabric, upon which a 600-pound oil tank was placed. Lane, who was a professional welder before attending art school, used her welding torch to cut doilies and baroque patterns into the oil tank, something she had done before to objects such as shovels, dumpsters and wheelbarrows.

"We are just thrilled with it," Bednar said of Lane's addition to the exhibit. "The pool served as the perfect base."

Placing the intricately patterned oil tank outside has caused it to rust, something Bednar said adds to its beauty, since the rust leaves a "beautiful, ephemeral print that's forming by itself."

The last work highlighted in the exhibition is an outdoor fence designed by Demakersvan, a Dutch design studio whose name translates to "The Makers Of." The 16-panel, chain link "lace" fence is perhaps the most visible installation, since it sits along the center's driveway, and can be seen while approaching the center from Henry Avenue.

It morphs the concept of embroidered wire with an industrial chain-link fence.

"We knew we wanted a long fence here," Bednar said.

And when she and others finally saw the finished product, they were speechless.

"We had pictured it, but until you actually see it . . ." Bednar said. "When the first two panels went up we were like, 'oh my God.'"

Actually, the reaction was pretty much the same for all three installations, Bednar said, noting that the Design Center staff were extremely impressed with the works.

And, since the whole idea behind the Fabric of Philadelphia initiative is to focus on the region's textile heritage, people like Bednar are hoping the images will solicit input from visitors as well. That has already happened once, when a former Quaker Lace worker shared her experiences with Bednar.

"Now we're hearing all these stories from people. It's amazing," Bednar said. "That's part of what we wanted to get with the Fabric of Philadelphia."

Lace In Translation will be unveiled with an opening reception on Sept. 24 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at the Design Center, 4200 Henry Avenue, East Falls.

An evening with artist Cal Lane will be held Sept. 25 at Philadelphia University's Tuttleman Auditorium, with a reception at 6 p.m. and a talk at 7 p.m.

To learn more about the ongoing exhibition, visit www.laceintranslation.com.

Reporter Jon Campisi can be reached at 215-354-3038 or jcampisi@phillynews.com