Tall Woven Laundry Basket with a Lid in Water Hyacinth

A laundry basket with a lid that stays on, which is rarer than it should be.

Three words get used interchangeably and only one of them is a material. Rattan is a climbing palm that grows through the forest canopy in Indonesia and the Philippines and reaches maturity in five to seven years. Cane is the outer skin of that same palm, stripped off and used flat for weaving and binding. Wicker is not a material at all, it is a weave, and you can wicker rattan, willow, seagrass or paper cord. Almost every shop selling this furniture uses the three words as though they were the same thing, which is why so much of what is sold as rattan turns out to be dyed paper cord over a steel frame. Everything here says which it is, on every listing, and if it is not rattan we do not call it rattan.

Specification

• Dimensions: see the product name for the diameter or the length
• Seat or working height: not applicable
• Frame: no frame, this is woven throughout
• Weave: hand braided rope over a soft form, rim bound in the same material
• Finish: water hyacinth braided over a rattan frame, a weed that clogs rivers in Java and makes very good furniture on its way out of them
• Load rating: up to 12kg depending on the size
• Indoor or outdoor: Indoors, or a covered veranda or conservatory that stays dry. Natural rattan is not garden furniture and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you a chair that will go grey, swell, split and unravel inside two seasons. If you want rattan outdoors you want woven polyethylene, which is a good product honestly described and something we do not sell.
• Assembly: Arrives fully assembled and wrapped. Nothing to build, no fittings to lose and no allen key.
• Weight: approximately 2.5 kilograms
• No liner, and we sell one separately
• Handles: woven in rather than stitched on
• Every basket varies by 10 to 20mm, which is what hand braiding means
• Not for a bathroom floor that gets wet, the fibres will darken

What you get

• One tall woven laundry basket with a lid
• A care card
• A soft brush

Care

Dust it with a soft brush rather than a cloth, because a cloth skates over the weave and a brush gets into it. Two or three times a year wipe it over with a barely damp cloth and let it dry away from a radiator. Rattan does not like being dry any more than it likes being wet, so a piece that lives next to a radiator or in a room with the heating on all winter will benefit from a light mist of water once a month, which sounds like an old wives' tale and is the single most useful thing anyone will tell you about it. If a strand lifts, do not pull it. Damp it, press it back and hold it with masking tape overnight.

Where it works

The boho end of the range, which mostly means texture. A woven piece next to a plain one reads as considered and three woven pieces in a row read as a garden centre, so the rule we give people is one large woven piece per wall and as many small ones as you like. Works particularly well against a dark wall, where the light catches the weave and the piece stops disappearing.