Girit Turquoise Cotton Linen Towel

The Girit stripe in turquoise. Broad bands of clean sea-blue on cream: the most summer-facing colour in the family, and the one that goes straight into a beach bag.

Why a flat-woven towel instead of terry

• It dries in a fraction of the time. There are no loops to hold water, so it dries on the hook instead of sitting damp in a bathroom or a bag.
• It packs almost flat. One peshtemal takes the space of a folded shirt — the reason these travel rather than stay in a cupboard.
• It gets softer, not thinner. Cotton and linen relax with every wash; a terry towel goes matted, this goes supple.
• It does more than one job. Beach towel, bath towel, sarong, picnic blanket, throw over a chair — the same cloth covers all of them.

Sizes

One size: 37" x 73" — long enough to lie on at the beach and wide enough to wrap after a bath. Because it is flat-woven rather than looped, it folds to roughly a third of the bulk of a terry towel of the same coverage.

Care

Machine wash cool. No bleach. Tumble dry low. Iron on low heat. Do not dry clean. Fabric softener is the one thing that genuinely ruins these — it coats the fibres and kills the absorbency you bought the towel for. The fringe is knotted by hand; if a tassel loosens, work it back with your fingers rather than pulling it.

Handwoven on traditional looms in Antioch, Turkey.