On touch, the nervous system, and why the way something feels in your hand is never trivial.
There is something quietly profound about the way we respond to touch. Think about it: the instant comfort of a worn cashmere jumper, the way cold marble under your fingertips feels oddly grounding, or how swimming in open water can make the whole world go still. These are not arbitrary preferences. They are, in every sense, deeply human.
As a designer, I have been thinking a lot about texture, about why some surfaces draw us in and others make us want to recoil. The more I learn, the more I believe our relationship with the physical world is far more complex, and far more personal, than we tend to give it credit for.
Your skin is doing something extraordinary
When you run your fingers across a surface, your skin processes an enormous amount of information at once. Touch perception activates low-threshold mechanoreceptors in the skin, and texture appears to recruit higher-order integrative brain structures, not just the basic somatosensory regions we might expect. The brain does not simply register smooth or rough. It interprets, evaluates, and feels.
What is fascinating is the role of a specific nerve fibre called the C-tactile afferent. These unmyelinated fibres, found in hairy skin, respond to slow, gentle, caressing speeds, and the rate at which they fire correlates with how pleasant we rate a touch to be. There is a biological pathway dedicated not just to detecting touch, but to deciding whether it feels good. Our bodies are wired for comfort, quite literally.
The science backs this up
Texture preference is not one-size-fits-all. Studies of the brain's response during active touch find that processing a less preferred texture triggers more activity in higher-order regions, the areas involved in emotion and evaluation, than a preferred one. What soothes one person can genuinely distress another, and the difference shows up in measurable brain activity. Our preferences are not random. They are encoded in our neurobiology and shaped by our lived experience.
The nervous system does not lie.
What this means for how we choose, and how we treat each other
Understanding texture sensitivity is not a niche concern. It shapes how we design spaces, choose materials, and support the people around us. We do not all have to feel the same to empathise with each other. When someone tells you a certain texture is painful, believe them.
It is also why we are so particular about what we make. A bag lives against your body and in your hand all day, so the way it feels matters as much as the way it looks. It is why we work in soft suede and supple, top-grain leather, materials chosen to feel good now and to age beautifully with you.
We are all, in our own way, navigating a world that was not designed with our particular sensory experience in mind. The least we can do is pay attention, and be a little more curious about what the world feels like through someone else's skin.
References: UConn Neurodiversity, PubMed, Treniq.