Keeping Bespoke Designs in the Wickstead Family

When New Zealand-born designer Emilia Wickstead’s mother and business partner, Angela Wickstead, quietly launched a bespoke linen company last year, it didn’t take long for it to catch on among the city’s most discerning style setters.

Interior designer Fran Hickman, Gwyneth Paltrow’s stylist Elizabeth Saltzman, art dealer Maria Baibakova, and Viscountess Emma Weymouth all flock to Angela for her custom-made Italian bed, bath, and table linens.

Angela’s background as the Italian liaison for Emilia’s brand, where she oversees fabric sourcing, production, and quality control from her part-time home in Piemonte, Italy, has come in handy with regards to her own label.

Through working with some of the top heritage factories there – many of whom produce for high-end Italian bedding brands – she came to the conclusion that the market prices of luxury linens don’t add up. Hence, she set about creating clean, classic, fairly priced sheets and cocktail napkins in percale, sateen, and linen.

“I like the idea of keeping everything in Europe and supporting Italian made,” she says. Another issue she took with existing linen companies? The colour options are too limited. Angela Wickstead Home offers an endless rainbow of monogramming threads, so whether a client wants custom borders in a hue that matches their walls or a monogram of their family crest, she can appease.

Originally from Auckland, Angela Wickstead has lived in Italy for almost two decades.

Original article by Jane Keltner de Valle, Architectural Digest, October 16, 2017.