Linen

The world can be separated into two kinds of people—the ones who love linen, and those who don’t.

 I am a lover, not a hater. Nothing says summer more to me than a loose fitting garment made of the natural fiber.

And those who shun the fabric do so almost always because they say “it wrinkles.” What they do not understand is linen only wrinkles if you iron it—it is counterintuitive.

The fibers of linen—unlike spun cotton or most definitely polyester vary in width. They are thicker and thinner all along the length of the fiber such that when woven together they are not flawlessly flat—the texture is irregular. That is what gives linen its character---its distinct body. It is what makes linen--linen It was not intended to mimic cardboard—which is exactly what it looks like when you starch and iron it—which is why it wrinkles irreversibly like a piece of construction paper.

And I care for my linen very methodically. I wash it on the hand wash cycle of my machine, shake it out and put it in the low cycle of the dryer for about 10 minutes. I then hang it on a hanger, and use my hand to shape it.

It dries perfectly. It is neither wrinkled nor cardboard-like. It is soft and texturally undulated.

And when I wear the fabric people will say to me—how come when I wear linen I always look rumpled—and when you wear  it always looks fresh?  And I tell them—because I don’t iron it. And the haters start to twitch and respond that’s ridiculous--you have to iron linen otherwise you will look wrinkled.

They just don’t get it.

Linen is like a partner in marriage. You must accept it as is---you cannot press it into something it is not or you will ruin the beauty of its natural state. And when linen, like a significant other, is allowed to be what they were intended to be, the reward is ease and comfort. And when the day gets hot, there is no better companion than either of the two.