By Manish Puri.

I’m in a car with Nathan Hellard – the founder of French linen merchant Maison Hellard – and we’re kindly being chauffeured by Nathan’s father, Philippe, from Pau to the commune of Assat, where the company is based. 

It’s a hot day, but the air conditioning offers some relief. As we chat about the imminent arrival of the Olympic flame in Pau, en route to Paris, Nathan starts to shift uncomfortably. 

He turns to his father and asks in French, “Did you put my car seat warmer on?” Philippe begins to laugh uncontrollably at the success of his prank.

What does this have to do with linen? Absolutely nothing except, perhaps, to serve as a reminder of one of the less-acknowledged reasons we spend so much time, money and energy on quality clothing: connections.

None of us enjoys feeling like the last link in a supply chain: a unit of consumption as mechanical and relentless as the assembly lines that churn out the goods. We’re worldly enough to understand that this is the way it is, but that doesn’t mean we don’t long for something better. 

Imagine a business where the founder (in between designing cloth and replying to emails) pulls heavy rolls of linen down from the beautiful wooden shelves that his father (in between cracking Dad-jokes) made by hand. Once set down on the table, his mother (Michèle) inspects, presses and cuts the cloth to order. Now imagine your relationship with a jacket made from that cloth. Their maison and yours are connected.

Nathan’s route to founding Maison Hellard began (after serving in the French army and working for Airbus) at Zegna, before a move to Scabal was cut short by the pandemic. However his time at these brands was enough to convince him that his future lay in his own cloth business. The question was, what cloth?

While Nathan had lived in Paris and Asia, most of his life was spent around the southwest of France. “There are lots of farmers in this region,” he told me, “and I wanted to honour that by making something using French growers. In the end, we settled on Normandy linen.”

To help ensure they source the highest quality linen and support local growers, Maison Hellard have partnered with Terre de Lin – a co-operative that represents over 600 farmers in the region.

Their linen is dyed and woven in Italy. It’s often said that Italians have a penchant for bolder, stronger colours when it comes to linen (heck, if English summers were as routinely sun-drenched as Italian ones, I might too). But Nathan’s preference is for softer, subtler shades – he uses the word “muted” a lot through our conversations.

Perhaps it’s the six years he spent in the military or his fondness for walking his chocolate-brown cocker spaniel Vaillant (the unofficial mascot of the business) in the French countryside, but the Maison Hellard shelves are filled with army greens, dress uniform blues and earthy browns.

How this is achieved is one of Nathan’s proudest accomplishments, and I think the key thing that sets Maison Hellard apart. Rather than rely on the standard colours offered by most Italian spinners, each of the Maison Hellard yarns is dyed to their own colours which are exclusive to them. 

Their choice of colours – a sample of which can be seen on the pinboard above – is narrow when compared to the gatefold-brochures of industry colour charts, but it’s carefully defined and establishes a real lingua franca. In my view, it’s what makes Maison Hellard’s range of linens – plain or patterned – so tasteful.

“We’re not reinventing the wheel here – ultimately we’re just laying one yarn on top of another,” Nathan notes with characteristic understatement. But with such beautiful source materials, you can see how lovely the possibilities are – we spend the next 15 minutes crisscrossing different yarns to a chorus of “oohs” and “ahs”.

The board also allows Nathan to illustrate one of his newest developments: two-ply linen (a yarn where two single strands are twisted together). While multi-ply linen is available on the market it’s often piece-dyed, so the whole fabric is dyed after it has been woven. The Maison Hellard two-ply is yarn-dyed, which allows threads of two different colours to be twisted together. 

Compare these similar coloured linens from Maison Hellard’s collection – Provence (above left) and Horizon (above right). They’re not directly comparable, given the Provence is a plain weave and the Horizon is a twill, but the two-ply of the latter does help show the extra body and visual interest that this yarn can offer.

A yarn-dyed two-ply also makes it possible to make patterned cloth out of yarns which already have some really interesting things going on. It means a basic two-colour check pattern could consist of four different coloured individual strands – just imagine the depth and variety of colours that could be woven into a more complex design.

Other Maison Hellard cloths that caught my eye were the linen, cashmere and silk blends with a subtle sheen from the silk, and a luxuriously soft handle from the cashmere allied with the texture of linen. I also really liked their 18oz linen denim, woven in Osaka and available in jet black, natural and indigo – the latter of which I recently saw made up as a crisp jean jacket by Whitcomb & Shaftesbury (below).

It’s clear that Nathan relishes experimenting with different cloths, developing collections and reviving old designs. “We’re too small not to take risks,” he says. The diminutiveness of the business has another benefit: unburdened by cloth agents, marketing and other intermediaries, they can quickly produce small runs of cloth when inspiration strikes – something I’ve observed first hand.

Earlier this year, I happened to be in Taillour’s atelier at the same time that Nathan was visiting. While browsing their stock of vintage cloth, he became enamoured with a 1970s tweed – a biscuit Prince of Wales check that Fred’s business partner Lee had found in a dusty cloth shop in Portugal – and took a few photos of it for reference.

The next time I was in Taillour, just a few months later, I noticed a familiar looking, freshly-delivered bolt of cloth on the desk. It turned out that Nathan, inspired by the tweed, had designed a similar style in 100% linen (below). It is now available exclusively at Taillour and is named ‘Peck’s Yard’ after the East London street where their atelier is located.

Finally, on the subject of Taillour, I promised readers that I would save my thoughts on how my summer double-breasted suit, made from a Maison Hellard ivory 12/13oz linen (below), fared for this article.

I’ve never commissioned anything in Italian linen, which Maison Hellard might be closest to, but of the linens I have tried I’ve found Irish linen to be crisp and dry; Solbiati’s ‘Art Du Lin’ to have a matte, almost suede-like finish; and the Maison Hellard linen a pleasingly soft, almost brushed handle.

The cloth is a twill and, in my experience and all other things being equal, these often drape better than a plain weave. Stains can also appear less prominent on the ridged surface – a helpful property in such a light coloured cloth.

I’ve been fortunate enough to attend the summer edition of Pitti Uomo (where the photos below were taken) a few times now – sporting tropical wool, seersucker and Irish linen along the way – and the most comfortable I’ve felt in those sweltering Florentine days and nights was wearing the Maison Hellard linen.

Now, before we alert the media about my findings, I should acknowledge that this isn’t exactly a scientific comparison – Fred’s relaxed cut is a contributory factor here too – but, even so, I’ve no compunctions telling people that this linen wears fairly cool.

I’ve also been impressed with how the cloth holds up over the course of a day. It holds a crease fairly well and while it does accumulate more rumples than Irish linen, they tend to be softer and slightly quicker to fall out after being hung. The jacket holds up better than the trousers, but show me a cloth where the reverse is true.

Ultimately, you can judge its performance for yourself from the photos. The first one (where I’m sitting next to Nathan) was taken around lunchtime, and the second taken in the evening – after 10 hours of wear and 15,000 steps in 27 degrees celsius weather.

I’d characterise Maison Hellard cloth as the romantic’s choice. Those who are already unimpressed by linen’s nonchalance are unlikely to be won over by Maison Hellard (to those naysayers, may I suggest tropical wool?), but those who adore linen and embrace it without reservation or fear of crumpling will find a lot to love here. Of course, romantics long for partners, and in Taillour’s relaxed and breezy cut I think the linen found an ideal companion.

Manish is @the_daily_mirror on Instagram