Linen....the fabric of our lives!

OK OK, so its not linen, it was Aaron Neville who crooned that cotton is the fabric of our lives. But in my (humble) opinion, give me its close cousin, linen, any day over cotton! And as much of a cotton gal that I am (I absolutely refuse to wear anything else, maybe silk if the occasion demands it), I love love linen. Both linen and cotton are natural vegetable fibers, but unlike cotton which is made from the cotton plant, linen is fabric or yarn made from the fiber of flax, probably the first vegetable fiber known to man. Linen is lighter and has more texture, and exceeds cotton in coolness, luster, strength and length of fiber.

Anyway, enough about linen theory, suffice to say that we all love linen. A crisp, cool linen shirt in summer really beats the heat. It may not be as smooth and sensuous as silk, or as soft and comfy as cotton, as warm and snuggly as wool, in fact it crinkles up easily and is high maintenance, but it is an organic, living, breathing, tactile, intimate and sexy material. And linen furnishings for the house are not only simply gorgeous, but they scream "NATURAL"!

Here are some stunning images of linen used for furnishings. Of course nowadays linen is dyed every color of the rainbow, but I like it best in its natural, beigy, off white avatar!

Pics 1 thru 8 via

Pics 9 thru 13 from various Internet sources

And for those of you really interested and with 15 minutes to spare, here is a fascinating, riveting video of the process of harvesting the flax fiber and making linen!


BE LINEN MOVIE from Benoit MILLOT on Vimeo.