I've been told two different but related things on this: either the varieties of flax plants as now grown don't produce such fine fibers or that the processing as now done doesn't allow for serfs to hand-sort the fibers to gather all the finest ones up for the spinning and weaving of such ultra-fine fabric.
There are several things that influence the fiber diameter in flax production. The main difference in modern times is that it's all mechanized for maximum production. Flax grows a much finer fiber when the plant population is high. (growing close together). Also, to get the finest fibers you have to harvest the plants before the seeds are mature. Modern production places the seeds in the soil at a much more regular spacing than the broadcast seeding done in the past and the plant population density is optimized for cash production. That means that the fiber is harvested when the seed is ready and the plants are strong enough to hold themselves up throughout the growing and harvest seasons. The fiber brings a lower price, but it's offset by the value of the flax seed. There probably isn't enough demand for fine fiber to convince any producers to forgo their seed crop.
Denise B
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