Care & repair

Natural fibers get better with washing, not worse — but only if you wash them the way they want to be washed. The house standard is simple, and it is nearly the same for everything we make.

The house standard

Machine wash cold — up to 30°C / 86°F — on a gentle cycle. Hang dry. Cool water and no tumble dryer will keep the fit, the colour and the hand of every fiber we use. Heat is what shrinks a natural fiber and sets a crease permanently; almost every care problem people have with linen traces back to a hot wash or a hot dryer.

• Wash with like colours, inside out for the first few washes.
• Use less detergent than the bottle tells you to. Excess detergent is what stiffens linen and dulls cotton.
• No fabric softener, ever. It coats natural fiber and stops it absorbing water, which is the entire reason you bought linen.
• Hang dry out of direct sun. Sun sets creases and fades dyed cotton.
• Don't overload the drum. Fiber needs room to move or it creases against itself.

Ironing is optional

Creases are what linen does. They are the fiber telling you it is real, and a linen garment that never wrinkles is usually not mostly linen. If you want it smoother, iron while slightly damp, inside out, on medium heat, or use steam. If you don't, wear it as it falls — that is the look the fabric was chosen for.

By fiber

Linen and ramie

Both soften with every wash and both crease sharply. Expect the first wash to relax the fabric noticeably. Never wring; press the water out instead, and reshape while damp so it dries in the shape you want.

Cotton and cotton gauze

Gauze puckers as it dries and is meant to. Don't iron it flat unless you want to lose the texture. Shake it out while damp and hang it — it settles on its own.

Merino wool

Wash rarely. Wool releases odour on its own in a way cotton doesn't, so airing a knit overnight often does more than a wash cycle. When it does need washing: cold and gentle, then dry flat rather than hung, because a wet knit stretches under its own weight. Store folded, never on a hanger.

Spots and spills

Treat them cold and treat them early. Blot rather than rub — rubbing pushes the stain into the weave and can shine the surface of linen. Skip the bleach, including the “colour safe” kind, which greys undyed fiber over time.

Garment washed, and what that means for you

Some of our fabrics are washed before they are made up, which relaxes most of the shrinkage out before you ever see the piece — so the fit you try on is the fit you keep. Others aren't, and will move a little on their first wash. Which is which is on our fabrics, and it matters when you're choosing a size.

When something's wrong

A seam that fails, a button that pulls through, a fabric fault we missed at QC — that's on us, not on you, and it isn't a return. Email us with a photo and we'll sort it.