Sex and the City – The Sheets
July 10th, 2008 . by The Linen DoctorI agree with most people that the clothes in the movie Sex and the City are fabulous, but the bed linens are really boring.
We get to see two sets of Carrie’s sheets. The first one, early in the movie, shows a plain 
white top sheet plain white with three lines of blue embroidery. The pillow case has just one line. Surprising that she would buy a set with the case not matching the sheet. Why not compromise and get Sferra’s “Grande Hotel” with two lines of blue on both? The second set, seen much later in the movie, is just plain white. Plain white is also the sheet of choice for Miranda and Steve — more boredom. No way to tell the quality or thread count, sateen or percale.
Charlotte and Harry at least have a 1” appliquéd border, like Matouk’s 
“Lowell,” on their sheets, and their daughter has plain white in her very pink room. There is also some color and pattern on the bed where the four girls are hanging out the night before the wedding. We see a silk or sateen sham in gold and a pillow with an ethnic pattern being tossed around, similar to Yves Delorme’s “Serail’ a pattern made in 2007, discontinued this year.
The guys have more interesting sheets. Mr. Big has a set with 1” appliqué 
on the face and on the edge of the sham, black on grey, similar to Matouk’s Legato, which has three rows rather than two, sitting in front of plain light grey solid. At least I think they’re light grey. They could also be white, hard to tell. He also has a silk quilt with rows of quilting near the edge, like Kumi Kookoon’s “Classic Silk Throw.”
Out in California, we get to see two of Samantha’s hunk’s sheets. The first is a rather conservative tone-on-tone small plaid, like Christian Fischbacher’s “Batist Web.” The second set looks like zebra stripes, except blue on a white ground. We don’t have any pattern like that at Scheuer Linens but they must be out there somewhere. Too bad we don’t get to see any of Samantha’s bed linens since I suspect they would be more interesting than plain white.
Given the cost of the clothes and accessories, it is really kind of surprising that the girls don’t make more of an effort to have their beds look a little bit more interesting. It’s certainly not the cost since plain white sheets can also be very expensive. In a film where the clothes tell us so much about each character, why is the bedding so nondescript?
Maybe they don’t have time to shop for bed linens or maybe they just don’t think it’s that important, which is surprising given how much importance they put on the sex part of Sex and the City.
When my father died in 1982, I was suddenly in charge of the store. I was really scared. Even though I had worked at the store for 11 years at that point, I really didn’t know exactly what to do. I could sell, do basic bookkeeping, and do shipping and receiving. I always seemed to have lots of ideas to suggest to my father, but when I assumed control, I was not so sure I could successfully implement those ideas. There was no training program, no manual or written guidelines for buying, and there were things my father (pictured on the right, with his parents, Rosel and Fred, and his wife, Leonore, at the store’s opening in 1953) did that I had never done, like going to Madeira, Portugal on a buying trip.
I am the third generation of my family to run Scheuer Linens and George Matouk, Jr. (pictured on the left, with his father, George Sr.), is the third generation of his family to run Matouk. In 1929, John Matouk founded a company whose “mission was to give American homemakers ready access to the world’s finest, most luxurious linens.” My grandparents started in 1937 by selling fine linens in customers’ homes. There was no Scheuer Linens store in those days. As both companies evolved and grew, both stayed committed to having the very finest quality linens and never compromised on quality or service.
New color threads are predicted every year in our industry by several established and reputable color forecasting companies. Forecasts are made every year; sometimes they are very much the same, and sometimes they differ greatly.
The Pantone View Colour Planner for summer 2009 details seven palettes, including: Female-ism (medium pastels with a tinge of retro glamour); Classic-ism (almost devoid of color except for one medium blue accent); Independent-ism (tart, bold, and gregarious colors); Today-ism (deep, dark shades of reddish blues, and brown); Absurd-ism (combines disproportionate color hues and values); Fetish-ism (”a carnal inspiration and desire for experimentation”); and Surreal-ism (”plays with scale, combination, and expectation to create unexpected, and even strange, creations”). 
In 1878, John Wanamaker of Philadelphia department store fame decreed January to be the time for a white sale where bed linen, which were available in white only, were sold at a discount. It is believed he might have done so to keep linen makers in business during a slow time of the year.
The traditional “drop” for a tablecloth (the amount that extends below the tabletop) is 12-14 inches. Measure the width and length of your table, then add (double the desired measurement of drop) to each dimension for the correct size cloth. For example, for the desired drop listed above, measure both length and width of your table and add 24 to 28 inches to both width and length for the proper size cloth.
There are four basic steps that affect the quality of a sheet. The finest feeling sheets start by using the best cotton with the longest staple, usually about three inches long. A staple is what you pull from a ball of cotton. Shorter staple cottons can result in yarns that break and fabrics that pill.
Prices are all over the board and even discount stores offer sets of high thread count sheets at really attractive prices. Once upon a time, the best sheets were made in Italy or Switzerland, but now they are made all over the world.
It took United Feather & Down nearly three years of working with European fiber technicians and engineers to produce MicroMax.