From her grandfather who ran a textile manufacturing company to her mother leading a successful homeware boutique in Hong Kong, Adah Chan notes that she learned the value of artisanship and sustainability from the experiences and knowledge passed down by family. Baea, Chan’s new bedding and homeware company named after the bay area where she grew up, combines sustainability with quality and luxury.
So, how exactly is Baea practicing sustainability? With complete transparency, Baea details its rigorous efforts to use only natural and eco-friendly materials. “Respect for nature is at the heart of everything we do. That’s why we choose organically grown cotton and biodegradable materials. And it’s the reason we partner with the most reputable makers, who prioritize the wellbeing of artisans while minimizing their footprint,” reads Baea’s website.
In addition to sustainable cotton, Baea uses Corozo, a vegetable ivory derived from tagua palm nuts, for the buttons on its products. They also prioritize longevity in their products, recognizing that longer-lasting beddings will ensure less waste. Following this mantra, the bedding and homeware company avoids overproduction and only creates in small batches. For those who are curious, the packaging for all of their products is indeed biodegradable.
“During the processing stage, forty percent of the water required for finishing our fabric is recuperated and reused. Furthermore, we have chosen to work with only light colours to minimize the dyes and chemicals used in the process,” further details Baea’s website.
Having worked in retail for many years, Chan witnessed the evolution of contemporary interior design. However, bedding design has remained relatively stagnant. As such, Baea is setting a new standard in the industry with abstract designs based on shapes and themes found in nature. In this way, they bring nature into the home through its practices and its designs.
Currently, Baea’s three collections include Rocks, Meadow, and Wild Meadow. Each collection contains contemporary designs based on the abstract shapes attributed to their nature-based themes. Baea also sells throw pillows and cushions with their own calming designs.
Neha Khoral of Setting Mind interviews Chan to learn more.
Khoral: What inspired you to leap forward and start your very own company?
Chan: I’ve been lucky to work with many founders or have friends that have started their own companies, some of whom I mentor, or learn from every day. All of them inspired me but the person that inspired me the most — at the root of it — is definitely my mother.
I spent my childhood watching her build her retail business into a renowned destination for quality linens and homewares in Asia. I’d go to trade shows with her where she taught me about choosing new products. And, of course, she had me serving on the shopfloor — the best way to learn what customers want! We travelled a lot too. We were in Morocco once on a family holiday and I remember coming home with four beautiful handmade rugs for the shop. Her passion for seeking out quality craftsmanship has definitely been handed down to me — some values are deeply ingrained.
How did sustainability become a central aspect of the company and how is it practiced within Baea?
I believe we all have an obligation with every decision we make to think about how it will affect the planet.
On a personal level, sustainability has always been about longevity. I come from a family with decades of experience in textiles and homewares, where making things to last was of the utmost importance. This was long before anyone thought about this in terms of sustainability. It was just common sense.
It’s been very rewarding to build a new brand out of this expertise, creating products that last through positive choices of materials and methods of production.
Some things were obvious — of course, the cotton had to be organic — and then we asked what about the buttons on the duvet cover? What are the biodegradable options available to us? Our research led to an ingenious material called Corozo made from the nuts of the tagua palm. It’s not a new material and was actually known as vegetable ivory for decades, long before buttons were made from industrial plastics.
We still have plenty to learn, but the company is founded on a clear vision and that keeps us on course. And we’re fortunate to be working with a wonderful community of makers and designers whose commitment to sustainability is a constant inspiration to do better. We’re also very interested in how other practitioners respond to this issue and pay a lot of attention to artists, architects, craftspeople and creatives in general. Ultimately, our hope is to make Baea a recognized authority on sustainable home textiles.
How were you personally inspired to create a bedding brand? Who inspired you and what challenges did you face?
The bed is so important! We spend so much of our lives there which means it needs to be comfortable, but also a haven for reflection, unwinding and dreaming. It’s a great canvas for designers too. Growing up among textiles and bedding has given me the confidence to innovate and think freely in terms of contemporary design. And it’s meant we can have fun with it — after all, we bring the wild to the bed!
In 2017, I met Baea’s creative director, British textile designer Catherine Reeves, through a friend. We connected over a shared desire to create something new and decided to work together. Catherine and I spent many weeks recalling times spent outdoors, delving deep into the inspiration we’ve both found there.
We shared hundreds of images, created mood boards, researched textiles and travelled together to speak with artisans. From this wealth of material, we decided on a few natural forms that lent themselves to the kind of modern yet evocative design motifs we had in mind. Our idea was to create contemporary bedding with a strong sense of design and meaning.
The most challenging aspect was time. Everything just takes longer when you are doing something new. For example, it took us two years to find a long-term partner that we truly trusted who was producing organic cotton of a high enough quality. Ensuring sustainability also meant that we had to be hands-on in our search for materials — it was important we did things like sourcing the plant-based buttons ourselves.
More recently, under the current circumstances of COVID-19, it’s taking a lot longer to get hold of sample swatches and things like that, and fine-tuning techniques and designs remotely can present challenges. Luckily, Catherine and I were able to visit our makers together last year and we have built up a great working relationship with them. And as Baea’s collections are intended to be timeless, we don’t feel any pressure to rush into launching our second collection.
How are the themes for your collections selected?
Inspiration from the natural world is central to Baea’s design ethos of ‘Let Nature In’. This goes hand-in-hand with our spirit of sustainability. We believe that bringing nature into the home through design creates both a sense of calm and a reminder of the importance of caring for our environment.
The natural world has taught us to look beyond symmetrical design, to foreground details that move organically. When we looked at rocks, for example, we were inspired by the way they occur in the landscape. For Meadow and Wild Meadow, it was the infinite subtle differences found in grasses that informed the variations in the embroidery on the finished product.
As most people would agree, there is endless inspiration to be found in nature. For every collection, we try to create balance with our designs – for our launch collection our bold Rocks collection is balanced by a very intricate embroidery of wild grasses in Meadow.
It’s important for us to bring about beautiful, understated designs, that we hope, help forge our connection with the environment. We are continuing to look at elements in nature that speak to this – stay tuned!
How did the name ‘Baea’ come to be?
Baea (pronounced bay-a) refers to a natural bay and symbolizes the meeting of home and nature. When I was looking for the right name for the brand, I started thinking about what home means to me, and realized everywhere I’ve lived has provided a sense of shelter, and — in its own way — influenced who I am. I was lucky enough to grow up in a house situated between two beautiful bays in Hong Kong, which informed this idea of nurturing, comfort and sanctuary.
What are you working on at the moment and what’s next for you and Baea?
We are currently working on our next collection and also experimenting with natural dyes. This summer we’ll launch an online Journal, which we’re all very enthusiastic about at Baea. It’s an avenue for us to continue telling our story, and to share our inspiration and conversations with the growing community of makers and designers who have the same passion for the natural world.
To learn more about Baea, visit their website.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
All images in this article are courtesy of Baea.
