Linen, and the case for things that get better.

Linen is famously prickly when new. By the tenth wash it has relaxed. By the fiftieth, it is the softest thing in the house — and the most absorbent.

We love materials that don’t arrive at their best on day one. They reward use, and they slow us down. They ask for a season of your life before they reveal themselves.

It is, we think, the opposite of how most things are sold to us now: shiny on day one, diminishing thereafter. Linen goes the other way, and we’re fond of it for that.