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 Table Cloth  Judy Cornish, who founded the Canadian label Comrags with herpartner, Judy Gunhouse, in 1983, is all over the new linen. "Linenon its own does have that hippie quality and it can become lifelessquite quickly," she says from her Toronto store. "But when you mixit back with nylon or polyester, all of a sudden it's high-tech andyou can get a really slick hand with it, and it rumples rather thancreases. And that's what we love about it."

Coating linen to give it more structure and a shiny finish isbecoming increasingly widespread. "It's almost rubberized," Cornishsays. "Because linen is natural, it's quite fibrous, so things bondto it quite well."

For Sandra Pittana, a Toronto-based fashion stylist who appearsregularly on

Cityline

, treating and blending linen liberates it from its associationwith weather. This is referred to as "seasonless dressing" and hasbecome an industry buzzword. "Now, what we're seeing is that theydo these treatments because it can be used all year long," she says(a long-time fan, Pittana sleeps on linen sheets in the summer).

It's even poised as a new fabric for winter, says Cornish, who useda linen-wool blend in the Comrags fall collection. She says thelook is comparable to boiled wool but without the itchiness.

Price-wise, pure linen is on the higher end of the continuum,usually because it is produced in smaller batches than othertextiles. Linen blends can be expensive because natural fibres mayhave to be dyed separately from synthetic ones. This is especiallytrue with solid black, which Cornish says costs more than athree-colour print.

But as far as its impact on the environment, linen comes out aleader. Tullio-Pow cites an April article in the magazineEcotextile News that compares the carbon footprint of linen andcotton. Guess which one requires fewer pesticides and less water?(Hint: not the fabric synonymous with T-shirts.)

Perhaps linen's most intriguing attribute and one that applies tothe dresses, skirts, jackets, purses and even shoes in stores nowis that it may be of use to anthropologists in the distant future.The coatings will probably wear off and the colour may fade, butthe fabric will survive, whether fashionable or not, for years tocome.