Towel

A pure cotton, compact and colourful flat weave towel woven at the Mungo Mill. Quick drying, and lightweight, it’s the perfect roll-up-and-go adventure companion.
A pure cotton, compact and colourful flat weave towel woven at the Mungo Mill. Quick drying, and lightweight, it’s the perfect roll-up-and-go adventure companion.

NARRATOR: A towel has a lot to live up to. Of course it has to be soft and fluffy, but it also has to be robust and highly absorbent. On top of that, it must not disintegrate or lose color in the wash. The stuff that towels are made of is this: towelling, a fabric with soft loops that allow it to absorb large amounts of moisture. It all begins with individual threads of cotton yarn. Up to 43 miles of yarn are wound onto a single spool. There are spools of thick and thin yarn, of all different colors. If a towel is destined to be multicoloured, from the very start different dyed yarns are used. If the towel is to have a single hue, however, we start out with undyed yarn, as seen here. But the first step is the same. In the warp preparation phase, the yarn, whether dyed or not, is stretched out tightly on a comb-like piece of equipment called a reed. There are now 600 lengths of yarn stretched over these reels. But even that isn't enough yet. In the next step over 2,000 lengths of thick and thin yarn are blended together, and then waxed. That makes them more robust and tear-resistant.

Christy Brixton Towels Emerald