In early summer, the fields turn blue. Not the blue of the sky, but something softer. Flax in flower, open only for a few hours each morning, then gone.

For centuries, these fields were part of the Lithuanian landscape. Flax was grown, worked and woven close to home. And linen was never simply a fabric. It was something people grew, made, kept and passed on.

A Plant That Gave Everything

Nothing was wasted.

The seeds were pressed for oil. What remained fed the animals. The stems held the long fibres that would one day become thread, and then cloth.

The road from field to fabric was long. Flax was traditionally pulled rather than cut, helping to preserve the length of the fibre. Then came retting, breaking, scraping and combing, each stage refining the fibres until they were ready to spin. Through the long winter months, they were spun into thread and woven on wooden looms at home.

Months of work followed the seasons, from sowing and harvesting to preparing the fibre, spinning the thread and weaving the cloth. Linen was valued because people understood what it took to make it.

Old Lithuanian belief even gave flax its own god, Vaižgantas. In a 16th-century account by Jan Łasicki, the tallest girl would stand on one leg upon a bench, holding offerings and asking Vaižgantas to make the flax grow as tall as she was. If she remained steady throughout the ritual, it was taken as a sign of a good flax harvest to come.

Linen was there at the beginning. A newborn's first shirt was often sewn from linen. Soft, clean, close to the skin.

It was there in between. Young women wove linen for their dowry, sometimes years before marriage, folding each piece away for a home that was still to come. On important days of the year, the table was laid with white linen. Christmas Eve. Easter. The days a family gathered.

And linen also had its place in the rituals surrounding the end of life.

From the first garments to the cloth kept for life's most significant moments, few materials stayed so close to everyday life.

Much has changed since wooden looms stood in Lithuanian homes. The work once done by hand has moved into modern mills. But the connection has not disappeared.

Linen is still woven here.

The linen we use at LAUNIL is woven in Lithuania, in a mill with decades of weaving behind it. The machinery is modern. The care is not new. Threads are prepared and set. The looms are watched. The cloth is checked, metre by metre, before it ever reaches us.

From the mill, the fabric comes to our studio, also in Lithuania. Here, LAUNIL pieces are developed and refined, the fabric is cut, garments are sewn and every piece is carefully finished.

We work primarily to order, making in small quantities rather than producing at scale.

The tools have changed beyond recognition. Making something with care, close to where the cloth is woven, has not.

We did not choose linen because it was easy. We chose it because it has always been here.

It breathes. It grows softer with every wash. Its small creases and variations are not something we try to hide. They are part of what makes linen feel alive.

Cared for well, linen is a fabric to live with for years, not seasons.

So we keep our approach simple. We let the fabric do much of the work, shaping each silhouette around its natural movement and drape.

A shirt. A pair of trousers. A dress. Pyjamas worn night after night. Clothes that become familiar, and more your own with time.

The fields have changed. The looms have changed. The way linen is made has evolved. But the qualities that have kept it close to everyday life remain — natural, textured and made to soften with time.

We see ourselves as a small part of that long story. Not to recreate the past, but to carry something valuable from it forward.