Forty-one looms
Fifty-eight people work here, several of them the children of people who worked here before.
Guimarães, Portugal
A mill that has been weaving since 1912
Field & Fold does not own a factory. We work with one mill in northern Portugal, run by the fourth generation of the same family, and we have never bought cloth anywhere else.
The mill
Fifty-eight people, forty-one looms
The mill sits in the Ave valley outside Guimarães, in a region that has woven textiles for centuries. It is not a large operation. Fifty-eight people work there, several of them the children of people who worked there before, and the hemstitching on our table linen is done by hand by six of them.
- Family owned and run since 1912
- European flax, grown in France and Belgium
- OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified across the range
- We visit twice a year and publish what we pay
Guimarães
The mill, in three photographs
European flax
Grown in France and Belgium, spun in Portugal. Long-fibre flax is what makes linen soften rather than wear out.
Hemstitched by hand
Six people at the mill do the hemstitching on our table linen. It is the slowest part of the process by a distance.
How we started
A short history
2017
A trip and a sample box
Two founders visit eleven mills in Portugal and Lithuania looking for one that would work with a company that did not yet exist.
2018
First run
Four hundred sheet sets in two colours, sold out in six weeks, funded on pre-orders.
2021
The repair programme
We start repairing anything we made, for free, for as long as we exist. It costs us about 1.4% of revenue.
2026
Twenty-two products
Still one mill, still no wholesale layer on direct orders, still producing in small runs.
About what we make
Where does the flax come from?
France and Belgium, which produce most of the world's long-fibre flax. It is spun in Portugal and woven at the mill.
Do you publish your costs?
Yes, on every product page. You can see the mill cost, shipping, duty and our margin.
Is the repair programme really free?
Yes, for anything we made, for as long as we are in business. You pay shipping to us; we pay it back.
Do you make anything outside Portugal?
No. If we ever do, we will say so loudly on the product page rather than quietly in a footnote.