Linen

Borgo delle Tovaglie has hand-made linens in a Bologna atelier since 2005, still run by Valentina Muggia and Giuliano Di Paolo; their Ludo and Erica lines carry the large-scale florals of the chintz tradition, in the lineage of the palampores India sent to Europe in the seventeenth century. Varek prints its tea towels, napkins, and aprons with the seafood of the Breton coast - lobster, langoustine, sardine, mussels marinière - names as much a menu as a design. Studio Naenna, in Chiang Mai, hand-looms ikat silk cushions and throws using a technique that dyes the pattern into the thread before it is woven, so every edge carries a faint, deliberate blur. Musubi, in Japan, prints furoshiki wrapping cloths with historic ukiyo-e woodblock compositions - Utamaro, Hokusai - reduced to a square of cotton. La Soufflerie's linen tea towel is woven from French and Belgian flax, the two countries that still grow most of the world's finest.

A small number of pieces are cut from vintage cloth found along the way: a length of Rubelli silk velvet, from the Venetian silk house that has woven since the nineteenth century, and a run of Jim Thompson mohair velvet, from the Bangkok mills built from nothing after 1945. Nothing here is reproduced. What is cut, is cut once.

Looking only for tablecloths? See our Italian tablecloths, all hand-made in Bologna.