A Placemat, Built Like a Charger
Most placemats, and most chargers for that matter, are a single, sealed object. What you buy is what you live with, until a stain or a change of taste sends it to the back of a drawer.
Ours is built differently. It comes apart, on purpose, and that one decision changes almost everything about how it lives in your home.
The Choice Most Placemats Ask You to Make
Before the construction, the problem it was built around.
If you want to protect a table without covering it with a cloth, the market offers two kinds of placemat, and each one gives up something the other has.
The first is the rigid mat: hardboard or MDF with a printed top and a cork back. It does the structural job well, sitting flat and taking the wear of a place setting. Then read the care label, which says not to immerse it in water. The core is compressed board, so a spill that reaches the edge swells it, and the backing comes apart. A mat that lives under plates of food and cannot be washed properly has a shelf life built into it.
The second is the soft fabric mat, linen or cotton, which has everything the first one lacks: the drape, the texture, the fact that it goes in the machine. What it does not do is stop anything. Fabric is porous. A spilled glass holds the liquid against the finish rather than away from it, which on wood is how a ring gets made. It is a decoration doing an impression of a barrier.
One protects and cannot be washed. The other washes and does not protect. Ours came out of refusing to pick.
What follows is how we got out of that, and where the limits still are.
How a Coated Linen Placemat Is Made
Underneath every MI RE LA placemat is a rigid disc, 3 mm thick, cut to a perfect circle. This is the skeleton. It gives the placemat its shape, its flat surface, its defined edge, and the stability that lets it hold a full place setting without shifting or curling.
Over that disc, we stretch a top of coated linen, designed, cut, sewn, and embroidered in Italy. The linen wraps the face and the edge of the disc, then gathers underneath, where an elastic band holds it taut. The logic is closer to upholstery than to table textiles: a firm form, dressed in fabric, tensioned from below.
Nothing is glued. Nothing is sewn to the disc. The linen holds its position because it was cut to hold it, and the elastic does the rest.
That rigid core is also what lets one piece play two roles. Flat, defined at the edge, and stable under a plate, it behaves the way a charger does at a composed table, while still working as an everyday placemat the rest of the week. We wrote a full guide on when to use a charger, a placemat, or one piece for both; this is the object that guide keeps pointing back to.
A firm form, dressed in linen, tensioned from below. Closer to upholstery than to a napkin's cousin.
Why the Linen Top Is Removable
Because nothing is glued or stitched down, the linen top can be removed in a few seconds. Turn the placemat over, ease the elastic edge off the disc, and the two parts separate cleanly. Fitting it back on takes about as long: center the linen on the disc, work the elastic around the underside, smooth the face with your hand.
This has two consequences, one practical and one that is more about pleasure.
The practical one is care. A placemat that comes apart can be cleaned properly, top and base each in the way that suits it, without compromise. More on that below.
The other is that the disc stops being tied to a single look. The same base can wear the coral of Collezione Toscana one season and the jellyfish of Collezione Amalfi the next. When you change the linen, you change the table. The skeleton stays; the character moves.
How to Clean a Coated Linen Placemat
For everyday life, the routine is simple: wipe the surface promptly with a damp cloth. The resin coating on the linen is there to resist stains and moisture, and it does its job best when spills are dealt with soon rather than left to settle. The placemat as a whole, with the disc inside, should never go in a washing machine or be submerged.
What that looks like in practice is below. Coffee, poured directly onto the surface, lifted with absorbent paper and then wiped away. No cut, no speeding up, and the embroidery comes through it untouched.
Every so often, though, a table lives hard, a long dinner or a full season of use, and the top deserves more than a wipe. This is where the construction earns its keep. Slip the linen off the disc, and it can be washed on its own, gently.
Remove the top from the disc first. Machine wash at 30°C (86°F), 40 (104°F) at the most, on a gentle cycle, without softener, without spin and without bleach. Hang it to dry in the shade, never in a dryer.
Dry it in the shade rather than in sun: long exposure fades the color. Press it through a clean cloth at medium heat, from the back where you can. Dry cleaning is also an option.
Once dry, stretch it back over the disc and smooth the face flat. A crease that shows up later can be pressed lightly through a cloth with the disc still inside.
The full care guide, including what to do about coffee, oil and red wine, and why washing should stay the exception.
Treat the machine wash as the exception, not the routine. The damp cloth handles daily life; the gentle wash is for the moments that ask for a true reset.
Can You Replace Just the Linen Top?
The removable top opens one more possibility, and it is the one our clients ask about most: the linen can be replaced on its own.
If you would like a different motif for a disc you already own, or a fresh top after years of good service, you can request replacement linen tops in any motif from our current collections. These requests travel with our production orders from Italy, so there is a wait involved. We think of it as the rhythm of things made properly: each top is cut, sewn, and embroidered by the same hands that made the original.
For something that does not exist yet, a custom embroidery or a color outside our collections, we offer a bespoke service for orders of 25 pieces or more. It is a popular route for weddings, boutique hotels, and private clients building a table entirely their own.
The disc itself can also change. A different diameter is the most useful form of customization where a table is not a standard size, which is why yacht projects usually start there rather than with a monogram.
When you change the linen, you change the table. The skeleton stays; the character moves.
Frequently Asked Questions
One disc, many tables.