Years ago, I visited a Shaker farm in Kentucky. The buildings were spare. The wood surfaces were worn smooth where hands had touched them over time. The objects within the rooms did not announce themselves or exist for display. They were made and remained because they were useful.

The Shakers did not ask where a thing came from, nor whether it reflected a particular taste. They asked whether it worked — whether it could withstand use and justify the space it occupied through service.

What stayed with me was an ethic about use rather than aesthetic. There was real clarity about function as the measure of value. Nothing existed to be admired; everything existed to participate. Over time, the Shakers have become a touchstone on what it means to live beautifully and intentionally.

In recent years, production and consumption of soft goods and textiles have shifted away from this measure. These are often judged first by appearance or novelty, and only later — if at all — by how they endure daily use. Function has not disappeared, but it is no longer primary.

Fabrics we find may appear refined at first but then reveal their limits under repetition —pilling, thinning, stretching, losing form, textural changes, and fading. The compression of cost, speed, and will has reshaped what fabrics we allow ourselves to live with.

But allowing implies there is a choice.

Durable and long wearing textiles and goods – like 100% linen and wool - are harder to find, but these are the workhorse of the home. They are  sat on, plumped, primped, folded, washed, returned, and the cycle repeats. With home textiles, weight matters,  weave matters, and hand matters. Their value emerges over time, not at acquisition, but how it performs over time. Like the Shakers, textiles remain because they are useful. They aren’t there as performers, but as workers.