The Cotton-Linen Shirt
70€ for a shirt isn't exactly cheap. But if you take a closer look, you'll see that it has features you rarely find all in one place:
- Truly made in Europe: the shirt is made in Portugal, as is the fabric, while most brands have both manufactured in countries where wages are too low to live with dignity.
- Use of organic cotton and linen: This is the only way to avoid contributing to the mass extinction of biodiversity and to avoid putting farmers at risk. This commitment comes at a price: organic cotton costs 50% more than conventional cotton.
- Quality: In addition to what you can read on this page, all our clothing is pre-washed so it won’t shrink when you wash it at home, guaranteed to be free of substances toxic to your health, and covered in the event of a defect… And this commitment also comes at a cost.
In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a shirt like this at that price. If we’re able to sell it at that price, it’s because we cut costs on a lot of things we consider unnecessary: we don’t run ads, we don’t do sales, we don’t have collections… and we don’t have greedy shareholders demanding ever-higher profits.
Learn more.
Released in August 2021
This shirt is made with (French) linen to make it breathable and (organic) cotton to keep it from wrinkling too much. It's a practical blend that also gives the fabric a nice texture.
Medium weight: the right balance of flexibility and durability.
Semi-fitted cut: It follows the contours of the bust without being tight.
This shirt is made in Portugal at the Supercorte factory, with which we have been working since 2017.
Worn, tested, and approved by thousands of customers, this shirt is the result of a balance between quality, ethics, and price that we believe is optimal today. For example, we could lower its price by foregoing organic cotton or local manufacturing. But what’s the point of launching an independent brand if it’s just to produce under the same conditions as fast fashion?
Techniques That Ensure Quality
Cotton-linen blend
Linen's excellent absorbency makes it ideal for hot weather. Blending it with cotton reduces its main drawbacks: wrinkling, losing its shape, and being see-through.
Cotton-linen blend
Thick buttons
Ascolite® Fastener
Pre-wash
Thick buttons
We chose thick resin buttons that won't break in the washing machine, unlike those made of wood or mother-of-pearl.
Just in case, a spare button is sewn onto the care label.
Cotton-linen blend
Thick buttons
Ascolite® Fastener
Pre-wash
Ascolite® Fastener
To ensure that the buttons don't come undone, we've reinforced their attachment using Ascolite technology, a process that involves wrapping the base of the button with a heat-sealed thread.
Cotton-linen blend
Thick buttons
Ascolite® Fastener
Pre-wash
Pre-wash
This shirt has been stabilized and pre-washed at the factory to prevent it from shrinking when you wash it at home (for clothing made with cotton, most of the shrinking occurs during the first wash).
Cotton-linen blend
Thick buttons
Ascolite® Fastener
Pre-wash
Linen for breathability, cotton for durability
This shirt is made with linen (from France) to make it more breathable and Indian cotton to keep it from wrinkling too much. This blend gives the fabric a nice texture.
In detail
Textile with a textured surface
Thanks to the linen fibers, which create a subtle texture.
Chest pocket
For the glasses and the credit card.
American collar
Also known as a “button-down,” the collar points are fastened with buttons (which prevent them from flipping up).
Rounded cuffs
The sleeve cuffs have a curved cut: this means they wear out less over time and with repeated washings.
Horizontal buttonhole
Just the top button, to leave some room for my belly.
How to Wear It
A few ideas if you're stuck
Composition
80% cotton, 20% linen
Origin and Certifications
- Manufacturing, weaving, dyeing: Portugal
- Cotton spinning: India
- Linen spinning mill: Italy
- Cotton: India
- Lin: France
...manufacture in Portugal instead of France? Of course, producing in Portugal allows us to sell at a lower price. But it’s also easier to produce high-quality items there: in the 1980s, when France outsourced its manufacturing, Portugal strengthened its own. Still, other companies besides ours manage to make 100% French-made linen shirts, like Gratitude.
...does cotton come from so far away? Cotton always comes from far away. While a few die-hard Gauls manage to grow it in their fields, cotton farming is a niche industry in Europe. For this shirt, we cannot choose the geographic origin of the cotton, because our weaver selects the yarns.
How This Product Will Age
How do we know this? We ask our customers for their feedback on the product one year after purchase. And if the product is less than a year old, we provide our predictions based on some unsolicited feedback and our experience with similar products.
The cotton-linen shirt will remain in excellent condition: we haven’t received any reports of discoloration, pilling, or holes so far. The linen will become softer with each wash: the more time passes, the less the shirt will wrinkle.
Care Instructions
Your shirt is machine-washable at 40 degrees and can be tumble-dried. But it’s better to wash it at 30°C and air-dry it: it’s just as effective, much more eco-friendly, and will extend its lifespan. Also, be sure to wash it inside out to prevent discoloration and pilling.
Our best tip to prevent your cotton-linen shirt from getting too wrinkled and to make ironing easier: spin-dry on low speed (600 rpm max) and hang it on a hanger while it’s still damp. By the way, ironing is an art we can’t teach you in just a few lines: here’s a great three-minutevideo demonstration. Don’t forget to always iron your shirts inside out and at a low temperature to minimize damage.
Plus, linen will become softer with each wash: the more time passes, the less your shirt will wrinkle.
Environmental Cost
This environmental cost is calculated using the official methodology of the French environmental labeling system (to be rolled out starting October 1, 2025).
The label above shows the product’s environmental cost according to the official French environmental labeling methodology. This represents what its production “costs” nature when considering its impact on climate change, ocean acidification, its toxicity to freshwater, and so on. Currently in use in the textile sector, this label should soon appear on many everyday consumer products (food, cosmetics, furniture, etc.) to help you make more eco-friendly purchasing decisions.
The cotton-linen shirt therefore has an environmental cost of 505 impact points*.
By comparison, a garment of equivalent weight—made of 100% conventional cotton, manufactured in Bangladesh, and sold by a fast-fashion brand—has an environmental cost of 2,153 points*.
Why is there this difference? Here are the main reasons:
- Countries of origin: Manufacturing in Portugal or France requires less fossil fuel energy than in Bangladesh (one of the leading producers of low-cost clothing). As a result, this more local manufacturing reduces the impacts on climate change, ocean acidification, and resource depletion.
- The material: Organic cotton has a relatively low environmental impact compared to conventional cotton, particularly because it uses few pesticides (and thus poses a low risk of toxicity to freshwater) and is biodegradable (and thus causes fewer issues related to microfibers or end-of-life waste).
- Sustainability: Fast-fashion retailers encourage purchasing—in particular by rapidly refreshing their collections and offering a vast number of styles—and they discourage repairs by charging rock-bottom prices. This, in turn, increases the number of garments sold per person and reduces the number of times a garment is worn. In contrast, at Loom, we’ve chosen to adopt business practices that encourage our customers to keep their clothes for as long as possible.
Even though we've done everything we can to minimize it, this product's environmental impact is not insignificant. So before you buy, make sure to get the most use out of your clothes.
*Calculations performed by Loom on August 24, 2026. Click on the links to access the simulations from the official Ecobalyse tool and get more details on the assumptions used. Please note: The number of points is not always exactly the same on Ecobalyse (whose methodology changes regularly) as on the official environmental label (based on Ecobalyse version 7.0).
Reviews of this product
The standard practice is to send review request emails a few days after the purchase. We wait a month—the minimum amount of time needed to form an informed opinion.
Customer Review Policy
When do you ask customers for reviews?
We’ll send you a review request one month after we receive your order. We believe this is the minimum amount of time needed to have worn and washed an item several times and to form a truly informed opinion. After that, all your reviews are published within a week, whether they’re positive or negative.
Do you request reviews for 100% of the products ordered by customers?
We used to do that at first, but then we realized we were starting to send way too many emails to certain customers who shop with us regularly. In short, we were spamming them a bit. Plus, it was starting to take the team way too much time to respond to reviews—since we want to reply individually and privately to almost everyone who leaves us a review. Today, we no longer ask for reviews on products that meet the following two criteria: 1/ There are enough reviews posted on the site for potential buyers to form an informed opinion about the product. 2/ We on the Loom team have read enough reviews to understand how to evolve the product into the next generation.
Just a quick thought: What proof is there that we aren't manipulating reviews by giving 5-star ratings to everything?
Honestly: nothing—we’re just giving you our word. Just like with everything else, actually: where we manufacture our products, where our wool comes from, our lab test results, and so on. The only times we might edit what you write is if your message contains spelling mistakes (and even then, quite a few slip past us) or if it’s racist, homophobic, etc. (but that’s never happened so far).
Asking for feedback after just one month isn't enough to know if the clothes are really durable, is it?
You're right—that's why we send you another email asking for a review one year after your purchase—we even ask for a photo to see how your garment has aged. We use the responses to improve our clothing and to provide information on “how this product will age” on our product pages. To avoid unnecessarily bothering our customers, we don’t ask for reviews on 100% of the products ordered: as soon as we have enough data to understand where we can improve, we stop asking for reviews after one year.