My mother was always trying to buy me linen clothes but she always failed to put them on me. I can’t even imagine why I was so prejudiced against linen – I just couldn’t stand it. As time passed by, I managed to find some trivial explanations to it, such as “it wrinkles easiy”, “it doesn’t iron easily”, “it’s too rough for my skin”, and so on.

Reading some fashion blogs, I kept on coming across phrases, like “high quality linen”, “high quality wool”, “high quality whatever”, that were extremely puzzling for me. Don’t get me wrong, I am very good at sewing and I know my way with fabrics but I just  cannot fathom what the phrase “high quality fabrics” means. I can imagine that the word “quality” in this particular context might mean “the texture, the weaving, the composition”. But if you replace the “quality” with any of the above mentioned synonyms, the phrase makes even less sense. At some point, I realized that the majority of the so-called fashion gurus have no idea of fabrics per se. Therefore, I had to figure out myself what makes a good silhouette without looking for “high quality fabrics”.
Returning to the poor linen, I once came by my favorite fabrics shop and went right to the “new arrivals” section. The saleslady told me: “Dear, I’ve got some wonderful fabrics for you! Have a look at this linen!”LINEN! I felt sick a the mere sound of the word, imagining the feeling of the rough fabric rubbing against my skin. “Wait! Give it a chance! It’s a wonderful blend of linen and silk – 80 to 20% – just feel it!” And I felt it… And I loved it! The fabric was amazing: heavy falling, but soft, structured on the outside, but so smooth on the inside – perfect for sculpturing. I found my linen! In my mind’s eye I could already see a Valentino-ish midi dress with a boat neck. To cut a long story short, meet my new creation!