VINTAGE WAFFLE Imabari Towel Kontex

VINTAGE WAFFLE is a Japanese Imabari waffle towel by Kontex, woven in Ehime, Japan from 95% cotton with 5% linen, in four sizes from a 23 × 23 cm / 9.1 × 9.1 in handkerchief to a 78 × 145 cm / 30.7 × 57.1 in bath sheet. A crisp honeycomb texture that dries quickly, for bath, hand, face and travel use. Two colours, navy and ice grey.

The yarn is Kontex’s own, spun from cotton and linen together, and the towel was developed for European households, where hard water is harder on cotton than the soft water of Japan. The weave, the colours and the raw materials were each chosen so that wear shows less. In soft water it holds its look longer still, and where the colour does give way it reads as age rather than damage.

The finishing wash — the step that decides how a towel takes up water — is done with spring water from the Ishizuchi range, one of Japan’s hundred designated waters. That is why it absorbs from the first use rather than after several launderings. The waffle is deep enough to hold its shape under the hand, and the raised cells lift the water away instead of smearing it, so the cloth still feels dry as you finish. It dries faster than an ordinary pile towel, which tells in the rainy season and through the cold months when laundry has to come indoors.