In my home town, there once stood a factory for the processing of linen. The building stands there still, but linen is no longer broken, combed, or woven within it. Even the linen fields in the surrounding country, which etched into my childhood memory a small blue flower, have vanished.
By the time I had grown up, the factory was already closed — a quiet monument to an industrial era. But linen entered my life by another path. First, as the bread bag belonging to my grandmother, who taught me why one ought to keep bread within it. Later, it became my instrument in interiors, from the moment I came to consider it the absolutely ideal material for the style that is mine. And in the end, it claimed quite naturally a place in my wardrobe as well. And in my bed.
I do not seek in it only function, though I make no attempt to ignore its qualities. Yes, linen is very nearly perfect. It is a plant fibre of exceptional resilience, a material that breathes. A material that cools in summer and warms in winter.
But I seek something else within it. Character.
Linen is the only material that has the courage to age with grace. It carries within it my beloved, gently ironic stance towards perfection. It simply creases. It does so before I have managed to step out of the car in front of the office in the morning. But in this lies its whole essence. It is a material that legitimises imperfection, and yet remains elegant enough. That is, if you do not perceive its natural inclination to crease as something strictly negative. And once again, Cloud Dancer in tangible form. And in this colour — and in all of its kindred shades — it is truly in its element.
In interiors, it is for me the counterpoint to all that is too cold in contemporary design. The cosiness which had been missing from a space, until the moment linen entered it. A feeling that settles in you at once, and creates precisely that emotion we call cosiness. The linen curtain that holds its form, but does not feel heavy. The sheet that remains creased, as though tracing the whole night of sleep. The tablecloth you try to iron, and which stays smooth only until the first moment of dining. Layers in details that turn rooms into places. The feeling, when I know that now — now the space is telling its story. Creating an emotion. The very one in which one can feel the texture in a glance. And in my wardrobe, it is a conscious choice. The white linen shirt has become my uniform of integrity. It accommodates itself to my body, softens beneath the touch, and takes on my scent.
Artful living is about conscious choices. And I have decided that they shall become my first step towards slowing down. A choice for health — an awareness of what comes into contact with my skin, day after day. A choice of stance — my quiet support for slow fashion. Values which, in the everyday, become priorities.
A higher school of being. A conscious curation of the objects that surround us. And the awareness that beneath the surface of that white linen curtain, there is nothing we need to hide. Only us. In all our crinkled beauty.
This evening at dinner, I caught myself stroking the edge of the tablecloth on the dining table. I smiled at how beautifully its imperfection appears. And at the same time, I paused with full seriousness over how it completes a monumental table of solid wood, whose rounded edges this material truly suits. Over how the visible fibres weave irregularly through it.
We are the same as that linen. Woven of memories, of moments, of the counsel of our grandmothers, and of the courage to allow life to crease us naturally. And it is the most beautiful thing we may wear. In a space. Upon the body. Within ourselves.
With love,
Nicolette xx