A stock company for the promotion of folk industry
Editorial board
The origin of the Lipa company is closely related to the exhibition of Slovak embroideries in the town of Martin in 1887. The Slovak intellectuals and middle class were eager to see them and ladies started to wear them and decorate their homes with them. Many displays were sold during the exhibition. Pavol Socháň and other organisers were eager to establish a company promoting folk art production, supporting embroidery making which was the success in Slovakia and in the Czech lands. However, the Slovak embroidery making received organisational and economic support some two decades later. The establishing general assembly was convened for August 1910.
Soon after the establishment, the Lipa company started to seek for embroidery makers and other folk art producers and buy material. They were selling first products in November of the same year. In its early years of existence, the Lipa company was producing and selling daily use embroidery and lace products, children sets, aprons, women’s shirts, scarves, sunshades, bride sets, interior and bedding sets, blankets, curtains and folk costume parts. The embroidery-related activity of the Lipa company is very closely related to Anna Šenšelová. Later, the Lipa company started to publish the Živena magazine and books of the Slovak female writers. In addition, the Lipa company organised many exhibitions, too.
The Lipa company received its first financial support from the state in 1920. The support was regularly received between 1930 and 1940. The company was liquidated due to the new act on stock companies in 1951. The existence of the institution which promoted the Slovak embroideries around the world before the WW I, which maintained the systematic embroidery making during the both world wars and which helped to protect the original folk designs was ended.