Linen is a lifestyle
- Laima's specialisation is handwoven linen products
- Her studio has collaborated with Calvin Klein and Armani Casa
- She was awarded the Order of the Three Stars
Laima Kaugure always knew her life would be linked to art. The path of textile designer was a clear choice, as a child she spent most of the days playing under the looms, watching her mother working. Mastering many weaving techniques over the years, the turning point came in the early 1990s, when Laima Kaugure found her passion for linen. It was quite daring for the time as people considered linen to be a very simple material. Laima remembers people saying “who will buy such a floor cloth?” or “who needs that crumpled rag?”. For her, that was the biggest compliment, because she wanted to “break” this stereotypical thinking. Ever since, she has challenged people’s perception of linen with her unique handwoven linen products.
Discover her work
INTERVIEW
There are few unique ones. I didn’t invent new techniques, but I took traditional weaving techniques and changed their common use by implementing them in a new way. For example, mixing linen with wool fibres.
Everything is entirely handmade. Our fine linen fabrics are always handwoven and we use natural flax fibres. We work on old, manual wooden looms, which traditionally were a part of every country home in Latvia. It is a very time-consuming process but joyful.
Once I went to a factory to choose materials. In one corner, I noticed very interesting bobbins of fibre. I was told not to pay attention as they were defective. I didn’t care! I bought all of them and called it boucle linen.
That linen means folk and national. Or that linen is something very traditional to Latvia. In reality, the cultivation of linen in Latvia disappeared ages ago. My work is universal, global, contemporary.
