The traditional kitchen and toilet towel in “poor man’s suit” in classic white or blue.

The towels from Gysinge have an interesting history. Until the 1980s, Gysinge was a nursing home run by the county council. To create employment for the 60 or so mentally ill people who stayed at the home, there was, among other things, a weaving room. Many of the inmates spent a long time in the weaving room, which gave them a more meaningful existence – and the county council a cash injection. At the home, real fabrics were woven, not therapy work in the modern, negative sense. For example, all the curtains, tablecloths and napkins were woven for the reopening of Gysinge Manor in the 1960s. This towel fabric is a so-called sieve weave (the pattern looks like a sieve – but only appears after washing!), woven to order for a guesthouse in Järvsö in the 60s. The weaving method is also called poor man’s cloth, a weaving method that produced a fabric that looks much more exclusive than it really is. The weaving method is very old and produces a highly absorbent and durable fabric, which has always been used for towels and tablecloths. The fabric is most beautiful if you mangle it, then the shiny linen threads in the weft are emphasized, against the duller warp of cotton. The quality only becomes more beautiful the more you wear the fabric.

One of the contradictions of the fabric is that as towels it gives a slightly old-fashioned robust character, while as a well-mangled tablecloth it gives an exclusive feeling of “Oh my, what’s this?”.