Textiles

Textiles for the bathroom, the kitchen and the sofa

Textiles — towels, beach towels, bath mats and hot water bottles — are used every day. So they need to be more than good-looking; they need to be well made. In this collection you will find textiles with a beautiful design that gives you pleasure every time you use them, and that stand up to daily use. We also look at the effect the cotton and other materials have on the environment. Many of the products in this category are organic and GOTS certified, a standard that covers not only how the cotton is processed but also the working conditions of the people who make it. Textiles are part of our Interior category, where you will also find vases, candles, clocks and other home accessories.

Why the weight of a towel matters

Textiles are measured in grams per square metre, and that number often tells you more than the price does. A beach towel sits at around 420 grams: light, quick to dry, and it will not fill half your beach bag. A bath towel is heavier, because it has to absorb water. And a bath mat heads towards 1000 grams, so that it stays where you put it and feels dry underfoot. Look out for combed cotton as well. Combing removes the short fibres from the yarn before it is spun, which keeps the fabric softer and stops it shedding lint.

Suite702: two designers, two signatures

A large part of this collection comes from Suite702, a Dutch brand that works with guest designers on part of its collections. The Martens & Martens series consists of towels based on Colors on the Beach, an art project by Karel Martens: like the painted beach huts, stripes in different colours and widths run along the length of the beige towels. Because the front and the back are always different, the effect surprises you every time.

The Blend series by Lex Pott does something else entirely: two colours run into one another towards the middle, where they form a third, blended colour. Each set consists of two towels, one with vertical stripes and one with horizontal stripes. The brand name Suite702 refers to the Bed-In by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who spent a week in bed in suite 702 of the Amsterdam Hilton in March 1969 to draw attention to world peace.

Hot water bottles with a knitted cover

The hot water bottles belong to this collection too. They are natural rubber bottles in a knitted cover that fits around the bottle like a jumper. That keeps them warm for longer, makes them soft against your skin, and means they can stay out on the sofa instead of disappearing into a cupboard. There is an ordinary 2 litre bottle in solid colours and in stripes, a small one of 0.8 litres, and a long one of 72 centimetres that you drape across your whole back or around your neck and shoulders.