Actually, as a photographer, I can tell you that the flash actually usually helps to *hide* the lace. A flash can often blanket a subject with light, and therefore make everything appear "white", thereby hiding detail.

That's why seeing this photo, with the lace clear as day, surprised me ... though I'm not sure that a flash was used in these shots.

I find that generally cameras are more forgiving with stuff like this. So to see the lace in plain view like that was pretty shocking.