LOS ANGELES—Imagine arriving in your hotel room, setting down your luggage, and falling back onto your cozy bed, closing your eyes for a moment as you catch your breath from traveling. Your head nestles into a throw pillow on your bed, and you realize a faint whiff of stale aging and aerosol. Your throw pillow hasn’t been washed by housekeeping, probably since it was first purchased. Many other heads have also laid on your bed’s throw pillow, all leaving traces that haven’t been cleaned away.
Odds are, the throw pillows in your room haven’t been machine-washed because they cannot be without damaging them. Over time, the throw pillows in your hotel room will wear with age and filth until they are thrown away. Multiply the retail cost of purchasing new pillows by the number of other rooms and other spaces lodged on the hotel property, and the total replenishment fee is heftier than necessary, cutting into management’s bottom line.
The hospitality industry’s wasteful standard of “disposable pillows” inspired bläanks to design pillows that are machine-washable, fade-resistant, and durable. bläanks’s collective vision of high-quality contract knits with unique textures and colors also includes throw blankets, delivering a clean, soft and 3D tactile experience for guests indoors and outdoors.
Design Simplified
Contract-grade knit pillows and throws by bläanks are disrupting the hospitality industry with their zero-waste custom process, all in the USA. Their 1-2-3 approach simplifies design—first choose your texture, then color, then size.
Their signature yarn is spun with 50 percent recycled cotton pre-consumer and 50 percent recycled polyester post-consumer. The cotton comes from apparel factories that, if not recycled, would end up in landfills causing damage to the environment. The polyester comes from plastic bottles converted into new polyester fibers without the use of water.
Pillows and throws by bläanks are sustainably knitted to size with zero waste—no cut-and-sew techniques are used in their manufacturing process, preventing landfill waste. They even pass the Wyzenbeek 50,000 double rubs testing for commercial-grade durability.
bläanks is a women-owned business and winner of the 2024 HD Awards for Sustainable Solutions and Best in Show for their unique textures. For further information, visit www.blaanks.com.
Learn more about machine washable pillows and throws by bläanks at BDNY November 10 to 11 at Javits Center in booth #3028 or online at www.blaanks.com/contract.
