What the third summer does to linen
Everybody sells linen on how it looks in the first week. Here is what two years of washing actually does to the weave, the colour and the shape — with the same shirt photographed four times.
A linen shirt in its first week is not the shirt you will own. It is stiff, the colour is at its coldest, and the collar stands up on its own. That is the version every shop photographs.
The first wash takes about eight per cent out of it and softens the hand more than any subsequent wash will. By the third or fourth, the weave has opened and the fabric starts to fall rather than hold. This is the point most people decide whether they like linen.
By the second summer the colour has moved. Sand goes warmer, slate goes greyer, white stays white but loses its blue. Nothing about that is a fault — it is undyed flax doing what undyed flax does in sunlight.
The third summer is the one worth writing about. The shirt has stopped changing. It is a couple of centimetres shorter than it was, softer than anything else in the drawer, and it will now stay that way for years. That is what you are buying, and it is why we would rather sell you one shirt twice than two shirts once.
A short list, chosen slowly. Ten things we would own ourselves.
Once a month, at most
Product photographs are for illustration and colours can vary between screens. Stock and prices can change while an item is in your basket — the price confirmed at checkout is the one that applies, and any delivery charge is worked out there too.