A later fashion, influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, was "art needlework," embroidery done on coarse, natural-coloured linen.
It's made up of three beautifully restored 17th-century riads, with 15 bedrooms featuring cool stone floors with brightly coloured rugs, linen drapes and little windows.
I'm easily confused by price and value – which is why I own a garish salmon-coloured Paul Smith linen suit, bought in the sales.
He emailed to say he'd found two good calf-length pairs: navy, tight-cut to the upper calf for £27 at M&S, and cream-coloured in linen at Reiss for £65.
And as those rounds leave the muzzle at over 900 feet per second, they are fatally effective, promising to make a frightful mess of your pastel pistachio-coloured, unlined linen jacket.
But all the rooms have the same features, which include plush furnishings – faux fur throws, brightly coloured silk cushions, padded headboards, Frette linen – and a bedside iPod dock.
Although the exact origins of carpet weaving have not been determined, it is known that the Egyptians of the 3rd millennium bc wove carpets for the most part of linen ornamented by sewn on brightly coloured pieces of woollen cloth.
Worn ungirdled, it was historically made of linen, cotton, wool, or silk and decorated with coloured stripes around the cuffs of the sleeves and coloured vertical stripes (clavi) descending front and back from the shoulders.
Tweed, linen and corduroy (the aromatic, manure-coloured variety), the holy trinity of British style, are nowadays considered the fabrics of the fuddy-duddy, the village historian who uses an ear trumpet and partakes in brass rubbing.
