On the one quality people apologise for, and shouldn't.

Ask most men what stops them wearing linen and the answer is the same. It creases.

It does. That is not a flaw in the cloth, or a sign that it was badly made, or something a better linen would avoid. It is what flax does, and understanding why makes it much easier to live with.

Flax fibre is almost pure cellulose, and cellulose has very little natural elasticity. Wool springs back because its fibres are coiled like tiny springs. Polyester springs back because it was engineered to. Flax does neither. When you bend a linen fibre, it stays bent. The crease at your elbow is simply the cloth remembering that you moved your arm.

This is the same property that makes linen worth wearing in the first place. Those stiff, inelastic fibres are what give the cloth its strength. Flax is one of the few natural fibres that is stronger wet than dry. They are also what allow it to be woven loosely enough to let air through while still holding its shape on the body. A fibre that resisted creasing would also cling, trap heat, and hang limply. You cannot have one without the other.

Our shirts are pre washed before they are cut, which does two things. It relaxes the fibres, so the cloth arrives already soft rather than needing a season of wear to get there. And it takes the shrinkage out in advance, so the shirt that comes out of your wash is the shirt you bought.

What to do about creases

Hang the shirt as soon as you take it off. Most of what looks like permanent creasing falls out overnight on a hanger.

Steam rather than press. A steamer relaxes the fibre. A hot dry iron flattens it, and over time glazes the surface and dulls the colour.

If you do iron, do it while the shirt is still slightly damp, on a medium setting, on the reverse.

And then stop. A linen shirt pressed to a sharp finish looks like it is trying to be something else. The soft fall of a creased linen sleeve is the look. It is the reason the cloth has been worn on hot coasts for four thousand years, and the reason it still reads as ease rather than effort.

Linen is not a fabric that stays perfect. It is a fabric that gets better. The creases are where that begins.