Hilana Upcycled Cotton

Colour That Arrives Without A Dye Bath.

The textile industry produces a quite staggering quantity of offcuts, and almost everyone has agreed to look the other way. HILANA looked directly at it. The cotton waste is sorted by colour before it is ever spun, so the finished cloth takes its shade from the fibre itself rather than from anything poured into a vat afterwards. The soft terracottas, faded blues and warm greys you see here were the colour of the cloth before it arrived, which is a rather elegant way of getting a rainbow.

Woven In Denizli.

Production sits in Denizli, the Turkish weaving town, with a family who have been at the looms for more than thirty years and whose patience with a new idea is the only reason any of this exists. The towels are loom woven and finished by hand, in the flat weave Turkey has been perfecting for a few centuries: long staple fibres, very absorbent, and thin enough to fold into a bag without staging a protest. Worth a look alongside the rest of the bathroom and the utility room.

One Cloth, Several Careers.

A HILANA towel is a spectacularly poor specialist and an excellent generalist. It starts as a bath towel, spends July as a beach wrap, comes home as a throw over the end of the bed, and occasionally turns up as a tablecloth when there are more people for lunch than anyone planned. The range runs to bathrobes, ponchos, table linen and proper blankets, so have a browse through the bedroom, the table linen, and the living room.

Waste As A Raw Material.

The whole business runs on the idea that the cleanest cotton is the cotton already picked, which is why it is woven from what the mills leave behind rather than from a fresh crop. It began with a single run of hammam towels made in Mexico, grew on the strength of the response, and moved to Turkey when it needed both the volume and the skill. Very much the thinking behind our upcycled edit and our small batch artisans.

For more in the same spirit, look through the home furnishings, the gifts for her, the newest arrivals, or the full list of independent brands.