Hotel bedding trends change quickly—remember when bedspreads and ruffled skirts were popular? If you want your hotel to be in the moment, don’t forget these rules.
1. Incorporate the hotel’s branding elements into the bedding.
This can be a color—like Langham’s signature pink—or a logo. A decorative pillow in the middle of the bed can have a hotel’s logo, for example. New technology is allowing bedding suppliers to incorporate branding into the bedding itself. Sferra, for example, can take a custom pattern and create a unique jacquard or matelassé weave. In New York City, the Surrey hotel has a customized jacquard from Sferra on its duvet covers, and the James Royal Palm hotel in Miami Beach, Fla., has designs on the bedding that look like water when viewed from a certain angle.
2. Make sure your sheets are designed for hotels.
This may seem basic, but bedding designed for home use won’t last long in a commercial laundry.
3. Choose linens that have the same border at the top and bottom of the sheets.
This will let you rotate them for each use and prolong the overall life of the product.
4. Make sure your laundry facilities don’t use harsh chemicals when washing your sheets
Be especially careful that they don’t use any product with chlorine. “Most companies don’t, but sometimes they will,” said Jon Bryant, sales director of hospitality at Sferra. “Be sure your laundry uses a good formula.”
5. Keep enough linens on stock.
Ideally, have three on hand for every bed. While one is in use, one can be in the laundry and one can be in storage. This reduces the number of times a sheet needs to be washed, Bryant said, which prolongs its life.
6. Don’t fall for the “thread count” trick.
“1,000- or 1,200- thread counts are twisted yarns and multiple-pick insertions,” said Chris Gowdy, VP of Liddell. “It needs to be a basic single-pick construction for a balanced weave.” A single-pick sheet generally has a tighter weave and feels softer—making it a win-win in terms of guest satisfaction and return on investment.
7. Pay attention to the quality of the fabric yarns.
Super-fine yarns may look nice and have an attractive sheen, but they won’t work well in a commercial washing machine and iron.
8. Find small ways to bring pops of color into the bedding.
“Festoon lines are good to bring color into rooms,” Gowdy said. “This is done on duvet covers and pillowcases and shams.”