The piece is made by using the short fibers of linen, an agricultural under-product resulting from the combing of the fiber. In that sense, it is exclusively vegetal, 100% flax and fully local. The short fibers are used as a stuffing material inside with traditional upholstery technic (springs and ropes) and also used on the outside, to play with this expressive, animal-like, wooly quality of the raw material.
Raw Materials
100% Flax
The production process
- Growth of the flax
- Scutching the fibers
- Combing and collecting the short fibers
- Upholstering with traditional technics
- End of life: disassembling and use the short fibers again! (insulation, acoustic possibilities)
While 80% of flax is growing in Normandy, most of it is exported to the other side of the world to be transformed and is then re-imported.
Applied
Table cloth, bed sheets, garments… It is a very standardized material and L’Ecoucheur shows raw unknown quality.
Growth Opportunities
The main idea of the project is to use the raw material locally more than scale up the production of the flax. It is very hard to compete with China, where employees can work 12 hours a day to get paid much less than any European company. The economic situation is difficult to solve.
Contact & info
- www.paulinesparon.com
- @paulineesparon
Design Museum Ghent
Selection as part of DING (Design in Ghent), the new wing of Design Museum Ghent.