It's worth walking through everything that happens before a piece of linen clothing reaches a shelf, because the number of steps is easy to underestimate.
First, flax is grown and harvested, typically pulled rather than cut, to preserve the full length of the fiber. Then it's retted, a weeks-long process that breaks down the woody outer stalk so the fibers inside can be separated. The fiber is then scutched and hackled (mechanically cleaned and combed) before it's spun into yarn.
The yarn is woven into fabric, then typically washed and finished to soften it before it's cut and sewn. Each of those stages (growing, retting, spinning, weaving, finishing, sewing)is usually handled by a different specialist, often in a different facility.
That's a long chain, and every link in it is an opportunity to cut a corner: rush the retting, use shorter fibers, skip a finishing wash. It's also exactly why direct relationships with mills and workshops matter to us, we can't verify what we can't see.
