Why our linen is cut large

Every so often someone writes to ask whether our overshirt runs big. It does, deliberately, and the reason is about heat rather than fashion.

Air is the insulation

Linen cools you by letting air move between the cloth and your skin. Fit it close and you lose that entirely — you are left with a stiff fabric that creases and does nothing. The looseness is the function.

Twice-washed, so it stops moving

We wash the cloth twice before cutting. That takes the shrinkage out up front, which is why the shirt you receive is the size it will stay. Most linen shirts are cut from unwashed cloth and lose two or three percent the first time you launder them, which is why so many end up shorter in the body than the label suggests.

If you are between sizes

Take the smaller one. There is enough room built into the cut, and it will not shrink further.

The creases

Linen creases. Ours creases softly rather than sharply, because the fibres have already been relaxed. Iron it damp on the reverse if you want it crisp in the morning, and accept that it will not stay that way — a linen shirt that still looks pressed at six o’clock is not linen.