designer's notebook - from founder Anki Spets

"For the unconventional mindset and an ode to a modern lifestyle, AREA's signature scent, created in collaboration with Night Space, will set a transportive atmosphere with its warm accents of oak moss wrapped in hints of citrus and rooted in smokey, earthy vetiver." - Kat Hammill of Night Space   Photo courtesy of Night Space.  The idea of the candle first occurred to...

Designing can be a bit obsessive, I get into things and work it over and over in various ways until I am done with it... or perhaps it's done with me. ELI is the latest example of basketweave, a very exciting new development that we've been working on for a while to get it just right. Basketweave is the most transparent of...

  Continuing AREA classic herringbones, we introduce EMMET flannel. We know... flannel in the spring!  Yes, this is for the many cold nights and mornings still ahead of us.  SHOP EMMET.   HARRY, our popular soft and sturdy cotton blanket.  SHOP HARRY.   AREA founder and designer Anki Spets is heavily influenced by menswear. She pulls from the wide spectrum that on...

  In a recent article for Remodelista, AREA founder and designer Anki Spets gave her insights on the European practice of sleeping partners using separate duvet covers. Much like skipping the flat sheet, this practice is starting to spread. The benefit is better sleep, as well as the opportunity to style your own side of the bed. As we went over in a previous post on the...

AREA bedding lasts a long time, but its life can be extended even more by caring for it correctly. PREP The first thing to do is spot clean each item before running it through a wash cycle. Once a stain has been heat set, there is no chance of removing it from the fabric. Oil stains from skin care products...

  This month we’ve been looking back at the origin of baby alpaca at AREA. We also shared a story about LIAM, everyone's favorite present. Wirecutter even chose LIAM as their favorite baby alpaca throw! AREA founder & designer, Anki Spets, has been designing with baby alpaca for over 15 years and it all started with the LIAM collection.  ...

Last year leading up to Valentine’s Day, a very agitated woman popped her head in at our Los Angeles store. She was walking up and down West 3rd Street in a panic. Weeks before, she had, as usual, ordered personalized gifts for her clients: a “loving reminder” that they take care of themselves during the busy pilot season in LA....

  For our new fall blanket, I wanted to continue the large scale patterns we did with NATURE and SQUARES, but in a warmer, softer fabric for the colder months. I was inspired by the simple shapes of Constructivism but with a more versatile palette to play with our new PERLA colors, stone and plant. I had in mind something...

This May the VoyageLA staff interviewed textile designer, Anki Spets, about the how AREA got started in 1990 and how it's grown since. Anki provided some great insight into the joys and difficulties of starting a business. "Being an outsider is sometimes good, I did not second guess the idea to start a textile design company and think my informal...

Introduced in 1995, our Speed Rail bed was made of aluminum scaffolding pipes and fittings from the local hardware store, Metropolitan Lumber in Manhattan's Soho. Pictured here is the Speed Rail bed in our Varick Street showroom (left) and featured in a home from Architectural Digest magazine in 2002 (right). In the early days of AREA, we had no bed...