Why is linen in such a demand and why so expensive?

Linen is a sustainable fabric made from flax fibres. The flax plant has been cultivated in just about every country in the world and has been used to make fibre for over 6,000 years. To extract the fibres, the plants are either cut or pulled by hand from the ground (it’s said that pulling creates finer linen). The seeds are then removed through a process called winnowing or ripping, followed by retting which removes the plant stock from the fibres. Once the fibres are separated to collect the longest pieces, which can be up to 20 centimetres long, they are then spun into yarn and eventually woven into fabric.

The resulting linen textile is two to three times stronger than cotton and dries at a much faster rate. Because of its porous nature, linen has natural heat and moisture-wicking properties that make it a good conductor of warmth and a popular fabric to use for clothing or bedding in the summer. The natural fibres also hold dye colours better than some other materials, and thus the fabric is available in almost any imaginable colour.

As you can see,  quite a laborious manufacturing process and why an expensive fabric. Of course there are different quality of linen.The thinner, the worse quality as tends to crumple up and  crease much easier. Many manufacturers produce a fabric with  a mixture of linen and cotton fibres which gives the fabric weight but still breathable.