I've got this e-mail a few days ago. It's from Mayumi, amazing woman behind LINNET, a small japanese company I buy all my fabrics from. Here is what she wrote:
"People involving in the linen industry in Japan are the real linen lovers, and also very proud of their works."
"In any way we are working with those local mills to make our products, as we can keep them in high quality under the close relationship."
"I think, if we can produce the good quality linen fabrics, it will last more than 10 years in spite of the heavy-use. If it would be adequately treated, it could last much more. So, we can be free from too much consuming life... Personally it was my first feeling to have known the high quality linen in my yonger age."
Ten years! Can you imagine that? My favourite jeans are falling apart after three years, and I actually thought they lasted pretty well! It all makes me think how we are so used to the things that are not made to last... It's also a huge responsibility and a challenge: to make things that you would actually like to wear for 10 years and even longer...
Do you have clothes that you've been loving and wearing for years? What are they? I'd love to know..
7 comments:
What a wonderful letter!
I have a pair of Canadian Army pants that I cut off into shorts. I've been wearing them every summer, waaaay too frequently, for 15 years.
I am very sad to see that they are finally wearing a bit thin in spots, and wondering if getting another pair would feel the same. I wonder if the Canadian army has maintained it standards for uniforms!
I have this one cashmere sweater. I have had it for 6 years. It is very basic, but very soft, my favorite, it's just a basic black but it's the piece I always reach for. And...it still looks great. I handwash it.
My baby boy is wearing a handknit cardigan that was made for my mother in the fifties. Her brother wore it, I wore it, my sister, my brother, my first-born and now my youngest. And it stilllooks good - I love that - and I love your blog a lot. I have been thinking a lot about textile in ecofriendly perspective, too and your space is such an inspiration. And your work - beautiful!
1 very beautiful well made wool skirt with fabulous pleats I wear almost constantly through winter, which I've had for a number of years, and still looks like new. And a couple of Gucci tops that have stood the test of time - proof that quality wins over qty.
As for Linnet, their quality is exceptional. I think most people who actually see and feel it agree wholeheartedly. I have now found it hard to look at, or feel, other linens. How often can you throw a linen into the machine, and have it iron out in a flash and look pristine?
I have a dress, that belonged to my mother. She is wearing it in a photo, holding me, one day old, outside of the hospital in austin. It has traveled to countless states, and now to countries. I have it here in my closet in Geneva Switzerland, and in less than six months it will be home again, in a closet in our first home, in Austin (we hope!). it shows little to no sign of wear, except that it is slightly dingy, and clearly slightly polyester. i get complimented on it EVERY time I wear it.
until it was consumed (along with the house) in the bushfires of 1983, I treasured a linen nightgown.
it had been GROWN, harvested, retted and handspun by my greatgrandmother in Latvia. then she wove it into cloth. first the cloth was used as sheets, then later (when much softer) made into a nightgown, worn first by my grandmother, then by my aunt, my mother and finally by me. it was still in nightly use (some 60 years old) when it burned...
linen is fantastic. and the secret to preserving fabric is to wash it by hand, in lukewarm water. even those things that say dry-clean only.
Hi Olga, just stumble into your blog via India.
For years now i buy old linnen bedsheets on french markets. Some of them are 50 years or more and generations of french have slept in them. I dye and then make clothes out of them. Then i wear old linnen nightgowns from the same french markets. Linnen is so soft on the skin if its old enough. Isn't that a happy thought, the older the prettier?
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