Linen - Line - Flax

Among natural fabrics such as hemp – ramie – cotton – wool – silk etc., linen fabrics for clothing and household have been the big discovery in recent years.

Linen - almost completely displaced by cotton since the middle of the 19th century because it was cheaper and simpler to process – has undergone a continual renaissance in recent years due to the discovery of new advantages and ecological benefits.

If you hold a piece of linen fabric in your hand for the first time, you will immediately observe the very individual character of its fibre: it feels cool and dry to the touch. Its natural appearance has a silk-matt gloss to it. Linen has something noble and yet austere about it, which lends it an air of refinement which is both genuine and timeless.

Indeed the most important property of linen in daily life is its cooling effect on the skin and the consequent reduction in sweat. The fibres absorb up to 35% of their own weight in water, which they can take in and then quickly release into the air. That, and the subtle massaging effect on the skin may be two reasons why the famous natural healer Sebastian Kneipp so often writes about the advantages of linen and advises using it for healthy clothing.

Our grandmothers were well acquainted with linen’s robustness and longevity, which they greatly valued. That’s why old and used linens are sought-after materials for textile designers and collectors even today.

Flax - as the unprocessed fibres are called - can be easily spun, is highly tear-proof and lint-free. It is an excellent conductor, effectively cooling off excess heat, and is hardly electrostatic at all. Linen cloth is strongly dirt-repellent and anti-bacterial, is very absorbent, but not sensitive to leaching. It is boil-proof.

Cotton came on the scene in the middle of the 19th century. It proved to be more susceptible to dirt than linen, and to have a shorter lifespan. This was to necessitate an increase in the time and effort put into the laundry, as well as the need to change clothes more often than was the case with linen.

Linen is naturally strong. Linen tablecloths, for instance, don’t need to be starched after washing, unlike cotton table-wear, which is still often starched to imitate linen’s strength and lustre.

There’s only one little problem: linen creases! - yet all its fans think it crinkles in the noblest of ways. Through this slight deficiency its character grows even more.

Would you like more information about linen?

Linen’s Price and Value

Linen just has to be more expensive than cotton! Even today, it is a relatively complex process to make linen cloth out of flax. First of all it must be harvested, and then in order to become linen yarn of a quality capable of being spun into cloth, it is dried, retted and scutched. Scutching includes rippling or threshing, drafting and hackling. Yarn is then produced from line (the longer fibres measuring between 45 and 90 cm), or tow (which are shorter fibres between 10 and 25 cm). For long-lasting linen of high quality, long fibres are essential. On the other hand, cheap linen is usually produced from short, inferior quality fibres. The appropriateness of the price of a piece of merchandise can only be judged after fully assessing its quality.

This means that only a sample taken from the original material can tell you if the price is justified or not. You can hold it in your hand and feel it. For this reason, we advise you to make good use of our sampling service, which of course includes a price list. Nevertheless, we’d like to provide you here with a general orientation on the prices of our linen fabrics:

Machine-woven linen, 150cm wide, €18,00 - €40,00 per metre incl. VAT, depending on weight.

Handwoven linen, or extra width or other special features, €45,00 - €85,00 per metre incl. VAT.

Please note: We offer a quantity rebate of 10% for all orders of 5m or more from the same material. For an order of 25m or more, you will receive a 17.5% quantity rebate!

Those who intend to process the fabric further or plan to resell it can be quoted even more favourable wholesale prices - upon submission of their trade licence - and, for orders over 25m, increased quantity rebates! See under Wholesale.