This is not a time of innovation. It’s a time of disruption. Old business models have been challenged by new delivery systems, bringing high quality goods and services with incredible savings and convenience directly to the consumer. It happened in the entertainment industry with music and video; it happened in grooming with shaving subscription models; and it happened in menswear with online made-to-measure, custom shirts, shoes, accessories, etc.
No one is reinventing the wheel with the actual goods and services themselves, but new brands are giving the old guard a run for its money by eliminating costly middle-men and brick-and-mortar storefronts and passing those savings on to the customer. This disruption is now giving consumers access to what might have once been considered luxury or at least premium goods and services with unprecedented affordability and ease.
Now bed linens seem to be having a moment, at least on my radar. At first, it was mattresses, just take a look at these memory foam mattresses at such affordable prices for example! Never before could you access such specialist products at such a low cost.
I just recently discovered Boll & Branch, a linens company that rewrote the script on how luxury sheets, duvet covers, towels, and blankets should happen. Founded by husband and wife team Missy and Scott Tannen, Boll & Branch makes the wonderful organic cotton bed and bath linens of a quality that would bear a prohibitive price tag for most people. And they do it with an endangered code of ethics: their entire process is Fair Trade Certified, ascertaining that the supply and production chain is made by fairly paid workers in India and not by underpaid 12-year-olds working 14-hour shifts in a firetrap in Bangladesh.
The prices for 1 fitted/1 flat/2 pillow case sheet sets range from $200 for a twin and $275 for a split king. They also sell fairly priced duvet covers, blankets, towels and more.
The latest entry in the direct-to-consumer linens race is Casper, makers of the wonderful (and wonderfully affordable) made-in-the-USA latex/memory foam mattress in a box. Do you like the sound of the Casper Memory Foam Mattress? Here’s an article you might want to check out on the best memory foam mattress money can buy right now! Casper’s new offerings include sheets and pillows. The sheets are made with 100% extra-long-staple Supima® cotton from California, then spun, woven and sewn in India with a thread count designed to balance ideal softness, strength, and breathability.
Casper’s 1 fitted/1 flat sheet/2 pillow case sheet sets range from $150 for a twin and $200 for a king/California king. They also sell each component of the sets a la carte, as well as duvet covers, which range from $120 to $160.
Casper also added pillows to their bedding offerings. In a recent article in The New York Times, the company co-founders detailed the extensive research and development process that yielded a single “one for all” pillow instead of a selection of hard to soft pillows. It’s the same philosophy and practice that produced their highly successful mattress – one of which I’ve been sleeping on blissfully for the last year. The prices of the pillows are $75 for a standard and $85 for a king. As with their mattress, if you don’t love the sheets within 100 days, they’ll give you a full refund.
With both Boll & Branch and Casper, it was refreshing to see no symptoms of thread-count fever that runs epidemic in the bed sheet world. Similar to the emphasis on high Super numbers with men’s suit wool, the super high thread-count hype with bed sheets is just that: hype. The higher number does not necessarily mean better. It’s about good cotton.
This Era of Disruption is an interesting time. It’s given me access to custom suits, affordable ties, more affordable (and better) shaving tools, great shoes, the best bed I’ve ever slept in, and now some really nice sheets.
We spend one-third of our lives in bed. It’s nice to have options that enable us to affordably sleep like kings and queens (however you roll).
1 Comment
Funny how our world has changed over the past decade or two. It has its drawbacks, but I think we will all be better off in the long run!