Our Love Affair With Linen
Our aim is to create garments that are made to last and kind to your skin & the planet... which is why we've chosen linen for our creations.
It's made to last
Linen is one of the oldest textiles in the world, appreciated for thousands of years for its durability, breathability, and luxurious feel.
It also gets softer with time - handle your linen piece with care and it will reward you with its temperature-regulating, moth-resistant, good for sensitive skin and moisture-wicking (meaning that linen absorbs moisture without holding bacteria) features.
Head over to our care guide to find out how to best take care of your linen piece.
It's kind to our planet
Linen is made of flax - some call it the cactus of all textile plants. Flax is a cute, blue flower that loves dry soil and grows on marginal land (hence, growing linen doesn't compromise growing food!). It's a sturdy plant that is 99.9% rainwater-sufficient* and naturally needs far fewer pesticides & fertilizers than other crops to flourish. Flax is a regenerative crop as it is grown in rotation with other food crops, giving nutrients back to the soil and protecting ecosystems and biodiversity. Plus, it is local to Europe, allowing us to reduce our carbon emissions due to shorter transportation routes.
* In comparison: a linen shirt uses 6.4 litres of water across its lifecycle compared to 2700 litres for one cotton shirt.
It's a zero-waste product
Not only does linen biodegrade within as little as two weeks to 6.5 months but it's also a zero-waste product as all parts of the flax plant can be used. Whilst the fibers are turned into textiles for clothing, interior or paper, the flax seeds are used for animal feeding or to make wood varnish oils.
It's temperature-regulating
You may have heard that linen is the perfect holiday companion as it keeps you cool during hot summer days while absorbing water without making you feel damp ... but did you know that linen is actually temperature-regulating, meaning that it will keep you cool in summer and warm in winter? By the way, that's why we have decided to create a few timeless coats and two-pieces cut from warmer linen.
It wrinkles
Not only does We say: embrace wrinkles. We find it charming that linen is an elegant excuse for avoiding ironing. Be imperfectly perfect.
Our Certified Linens
All our fabrics are certified with the Masters of linen™-mark, guaranteeing a responsible production. They also carry the OEKO-TEX® 100 Standard-label, meaning that our materials have been tested for harmful substances and are harmless in human ecological terms.
We solely source our linen & hemp from the EU: Italy, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Austria. This allows us to support European know-how, jobs, good working conditions & fair wages, and a lower carbon footprint due to proximity.
European linen is one of the most eco-conscious raw materials in the world: the growth of MASTERS OF LINEN™-flax doesn’t need additional irrigation, is rainwater-sufficient, doesn’t use GMO, field retting, or mechanical scutching, and uses far fewer pesticides and fertilizers than other crops. Plus, growing Masters of linen™-flax is a zero waste process.
Each year, the cultivation of European Flax™ captures 250,000 tonnes of CO2 which is the equivalent to a RENAULT CLIO car driving around the world 62,000 times… or driving 3,231 roundtrips from Shanghai to the moon!
In case you want to know more about our materials and our supply chain, feel free to get in touch via hola@arkitaip.com. We look forward to hearing from you!