There is a global flax revival underway. In the great linen belt of North Western Europe, the land under cultivation has more than doubled in a decade and linen production is steadily increasing worldwide. After years of being spurned for ‘easier’ man-made fibres, or cotton, once again linen is being valued. It may only be around half-a-percent of the world’s textile fibres at present, but this time it is being grown not just for fine fabrics, but also because it's gentler on the land. It needs less water, fewer pesticides and fertilizers, and new uses are being found for it too, from creating surfboards to skis, from acoustic insulation to car doors.
Flax looks back as well as forward. Like no other yarn, it is the ancient fibre of civilisation. Linen has walked the long centuries alongside mankind. In Europe and Western Asia, its cultivation reaches back thousands of years to the beginning of human settlement and farming. It clothed the pharaohs of Egypt in life and death, it powered the ships of ancient Greece and Troy, it is mentioned more than 80 times in the Old Testament. This is the fabric that wrapped the Dead Sea Scrolls to keep them safe down the centuries.
Join us this month as Haptic and Hue travels to Ireland, once the undisputed centre of the world’s linen processing industry to see what it is making of the great flax revival and how Irish linen is faring.
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