Lauva | Foldable Patterned Laundry Basket

The useful measure of a laundry basket is not how much it holds but how much room it takes up when it is empty, which for most of the week is the state it is actually in. This one folds flat, so between washes it slides into the gap beside a machine, behind a door or under a bed. Open, at 40 by 30 by 60 cm, it holds a little over seventy litres — a full household wash rather than a token armful.

The body is cotton cloth, printed in black with a white quatrefoil lattice and finished with a plain cream band around the top. It is a pattern that does something useful: a laundry basket sits in a bathroom or a bedroom corner in plain view for years, and a print carries that better than flat black, which shows every thread of lint. Two cord handles are set into the top band for carrying it to the machine, and the whole thing weighs only about 360 grams empty.

The proportions are upright rather than wide — taller than it is deep, on a 40 by 30 centimetre footprint — so it fits the narrow spaces where laundry actually accumulates: beside a bath, at the end of a landing, in the gap between a machine and a wall. Cotton breathes, which matters more than it sounds: a basket left standing with damp towels in it airs out instead of turning sour the way a sealed plastic hamper does. It works equally as open storage for blankets, towels or toys.

• Material: cotton cloth, soft-sided
• Dimensions: 40 x 30 x 60 cm, a little over 70 litres
• Pattern: black with a white quatrefoil lattice and a cream top band
• Handles: two cord carry handles
• Storage: folds flat when not in use
• Weight: approximately 360 g