Linen is among the world’s first cultivated plants and it combines many unmatched advantages. Linen is not only precious, comfortable, and skin-friendly but also most sustainable. In comparison to cotton, it takes 90 percent less water from the plant to the garment.

elemente clemente has been processing only European linen from Ireland and Italy for years. There, linen is gained from flax through the so-called ecological dew retting process, a traditional and natural procedure. First, the cut stems are laid out on a field or meadow. Microorganisms elute the pectins out of the stems, thus the wooden partsare being separated from the flax fibers. Though this procedure lasts for several weeks it is nevertheless especially sustainable because the eluted parts penetrate the soil, fertilizing it naturally. When the field gets replanted very little, if any, fertilizer is thenn required which is beneficial for nature and environment.

Alternative procedures like water retting (mostly applied in China), chemical retting, or physical pulping are much less sustainable. All these procedures need much more water, chemicals, and energy while not delivering a comparable quality. Linen grows everywhere in Europe, allowing very short lines of transport.